Graham Allen: The reading recovery programme, "Every Child a Reader", is a welcome development, and I thank my right hon. Friend and his team, along with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for introducing it. In a constituency and city such as mine, one in eight youngsters at secondary school cannot read their first lesson at that school, so there is still a great deal of work to do. What can my right hon. Friend do, first, to train reading recovery co-ordinators effectively, and secondly, to roll out a programme to train teachers so that they can begin to expand the reading recovery programme to ensure that all our young people can read properly?

Jim Knight: While I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman did not want to join me in congratulating staff and pupils in his constituency on the improvements over the past 10 years, I accept that we need to focus efforts on adult basic skills. That is why we are concentrating our budgetary priorities in that area to do everything that we can to ensure that adults who, perhaps because of inadequacies in the education system prior to the past 10 years, are not reading and writing well, receive all the help that they can get.

Sarah Teather: In 1997, the Prime Minister promised to eradicate classes of over 30 in primary schools to raise standards. Today's figures show, however, that half a million primary school children are still taught in such large classes, rising to a shocking one in four at key stage 2. After 10 years of the Labour Government, why are they still failing on the basics?

James Clappison: I agree with the Minister that the A* grade will help universities to assess the merits of applicants, but does he think that students applying to university should be judged .on whether or not their parents went to university? A yes or a no would be helpful.

Parmjit Dhanda: We do not require hot meals to be served in schools, but we encourage their provision through funding. Transitional funding for school food—£220 million for 2005-08—is conditional upon local authorities developing plans to begin the reintroduction of hot meals. In addition, schools and local authorities are encouraged to use their capital funding to ensure adequate kitchens are in place. That will be supported by an additional targeted capital fund for school kitchens from 2009.

Bill Olner: I also welcome the Minister back. The figures are astounding, from 75,000 to 254,000, as he mentioned. However, we need to go further, because we still have an enormous skills shortage, especially of electricians, plumbers and other such trades. I wonder whether we should have some sort of scheme in which the apprenticeship starts in the last year of the child's secondary education, so as to start it earlier. Is the Department doing any work on that?

Alan Johnson: This month, we have given school staff a new statutory power to discipline pupils for misbehaviour on and off school premises. We have widened the scope for detentions, and established a new legal defence for confiscation. Next month, we will give heads statutory power to search pupils for weapons without consent.
	In respect of representations, in 2006-07 my Department replied to 307 items of public correspondence about discipline in schools. That was a 35 per cent. reduction on the previous year.

Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman is not a good example of good behaviour in public school education. I can tell him that the idea that we are all going to hell in a handcart in respect of behaviour in schools is not just an insult to teachers, head teachers and today's youngsters; it is simply not true. There has probably been the equivalent of the hon. Gentleman in every previous Parliament who pointed to a previous generation when behaviour was perfect. For the record, Ofsted measures pupil behaviour and has done so for some years. Most pupils behave well for most of the time, and the overwhelming majority of schools are orderly places. Indeed, the proportion of education in both secondary and primary schools that is satisfactory or better has increased and not declined.
	The very important point is that behaviour and discipline in school is one of parents' major concerns. That is why we have provided the powers that were recommended to the previous Conservative Government by the 1988 Elton report that came out of a committee of inquiry. Nothing happened then, but the powers that we have made available are relevant to the hon. Gentleman's question, as they give teachers and head teachers the right to deal with bad behaviour outside the school gates. Those powers enjoyed all-party support and came into effect on 1 April. They will add to the existing powers that teachers have to reduce bad behaviour in our schools.

Jim Knight: I agree with the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's question. As he advises the leader of his party—to whom I listened on the "Today" programme on Monday—perhaps he could advise him that heads can exclude. We are backing heads when pupils' behaviour warrants exclusion. We have made it clear that heads can permanently exclude pupils who are disruptive or violent, even for a first or one-off offence, and we have greatly limited the powers of appeals panels, to which reference was made, to return excluded pupils to the classroom. The vast majority of the 9,440 pupils permanently excluded each year are not returned to the classroom; in 2004-05 that happened in only 110 cases—1.2 per cent. of exclusions. On the point about the voluntary sector, we are interested in that sector and want to work well with it across Government. That is something I regularly discuss with the Minister in the Cabinet Office with responsibility for the third sector across Government.

Andrew George: Welcome as that additional funding is, the Minister will be aware through correspondence with her Department—as well as from my argument that Cornwall should get a fairer share of the schools budget—that because of how the formula is cut, schools such as Pendeen in my constituency, where more than half the pupils have either special educational needs or a statement, face severe financial challenges at present. If, as the Government say, "Every Child Matters", what reassurance can the Minister provide that the formula will be set in such a way that in schools such as Pendeen SEN will be met? Will she agree to meet me and my constituents from Pendeen in order to discuss the challenges that they face?

Theresa May: The website TheyWorkForYou.com has been threatened with legal action for repeating what was printed in  Hansard. Will the Leader of the House make a statement about the application of parliamentary privilege to organisations with a licence to reprint  Hansard?
	This week, it has emerged that lives have been put at risk by leaks about anti-terrorist operations. Peter Clarke of the Metropolitan police said that
	"The people who do this...are beneath contempt"
	and "put lives at risk." Yesterday, the Prime Minister refused to guarantee that the leaks did not come from Ministers, civil servants or special advisers, yet he refused to order a full-scale inquiry. Contrary to assurances given by the Home Secretary to my hon. Friend the shadow Attorney-General, it is reported today that the source of the leaks is the Home Secretary's special adviser. Why are the Government refusing an independent inquiry? On 6 February, Liberty submitted a freedom of information request in relation to media briefings on the raids. An answer has been delayed by the Home Office not once but twice, and is now due on 3 May. Will the Leader of the House guarantee that the Home Office will reply on 3 May, and that the Home Secretary will make a statement to the House at the first opportunity?
	On Tuesday, Lord Woolf, the former Lord Chief Justice, said that the split of the Home Office is
	"a very big change for our constitution",
	but that
	"There has been no debate. Parliament has not considered this".
	Will the Leader of the House commit to a debate in Government time on the restructuring of the Home Office? May we also have a statement from a Minister from the Department for Constitutional Affairs on judicial independence? The changes must not go ahead without our ensuring that proper safeguards are in place.
	When people vote in next week's local elections, they will do so without knowing the full extent of the Labour tax bombshell that awaits them. That is because the Chancellor's Lyons review, carried out at a cost of £2.25 million, has been buried, at least until after the local elections, but official Treasury documents show that although the 2007 council tax revaluation in England has been postponed, council tax inspectors are already maintaining and further improving the extensive electronic database of every home in England. That database will include details of home improvements and photographs, and will catalogue the bedrooms, bathrooms and attics of every home. If the Orwellian Chancellor will not make a statement to the House on the future of local government finance, will his campaign manager, the Leader of the House, make one? If voters do not know about Labour's council tax bombshell, they do know that Conservative councils have cheaper council tax, cleaner streets, less litter, less graffiti and less fly-tipping, so may we have a debate on best practice in local government?
	The issues that I have mentioned are typical of the Government's attitude to scrutiny; there are sham consultations and policies that nobody wants, and there is no chance for scrutiny by Parliament. Perhaps it is little wonder that the Secretary of State for Wales has said:
	"We at the top of the party and government have lost touch with...the country."
	If they want to get back in touch with the country, why do they not stop lecturing and start listening?

David Heath: The Leader of the House said that he deprecates and deplores the leaks about anti-terrorism operations. Will the Home Secretary come to the House on Monday to confirm that a police investigation has been launched along the lines that the Leader of the House described?
	Further on the Home Office, may we have a debate on printing facilities in the Home Office and whether they are fit for purpose? The Home Office is obliged by law to lay before the House at six-monthly intervals a report on the costs of ID cards. That has not been done. The deadline has been breached. In addition, a commitment was made by the Home Secretary on 10 January that 27,500 files on offences committed abroad would be added to the police national computer within three months. That is another deadline that has passed. Will the Home Secretary report on both issues on Monday?
	May we have a debate on coroners? That is a subject which causes concern to many people around the country, not just in the context of the inquest into Princess Diana's death, but the deplorable backlog in military inquests, which still persists and causes enormous distress to many families. May I add to that another instance of malfunction in the coroners system—the after-effects of the awful train crash at Ufton Nervet, which the right hon. Gentleman will recall. Families in Devon who lost family members in that train crash went to the High Court to secure legal aid for representation at the inquiry, and have now been told that the Government intend, disgracefully, to appeal against that grant of legal aid. One family which lost a mother and a daughter in that crash will not be represented, if the Government have their way.
	Lastly, may we have a debate on engineering and innovation, this being science and engineering week? Many right hon. and hon. Members had the opportunity last night to visit the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and saw an excellent exhibition, including my constituent, Andy Green, exhibiting a remarkable vehicle that does 5,353 miles per gallon, which ain't bad. We often fail to recognise the critical role that engineers and scientists play in our society, dealing with problems that face us in the future. May we have a debate on the way that we encourage engineering in this country and encourage people to follow that career path?

Jack Straw: I cannot give any undertaking that the Home Secretary will be able to make a statement on Monday. He has always been assiduous in responding to requests from the House, but I can make no promise about that. On printing and the six-monthly report, I will follow that up. Either I or the Home Secretary will write to the hon. Gentleman.
	On coroners, my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor is well aware of the backlog of inquests, particularly military inquests dealing with deaths in action. It is partly for that reason that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence made arrangements to shift the site of the incoming flights carrying the coffins of those who have been killed in action from Brize Norton to Lyneham. We hope that that is working better, but all of us are extremely anxious to ensure that, first, there are prompt inquests and, secondly, that they are thorough and that, when they take place, they show proper respect to the young man or woman who was killed in action and to their families and comrades.
	I am afraid that I will have to write to the hon. Gentleman about the train crash in Devon—[Hon. Members: "In Berkshire."] I am sorry; that is why I knew nothing about a train crash in Devon. The train crash in Berkshire is a different matter. I will take it up with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor.
	I agree with the hon. Gentleman about engineering and innovation. We will have to look to see whether there is an opportunity for a debate, but all of us need to understand and appreciate the extraordinary role that science and engineering have made in the development of our society. I recognised that last Friday when I was privileged to open the new exhibition on Blackburn's textile heritage. As everyone in the House should know—I think that most do—the industrial revolution and therefore Britain's greatness began in Blackburn.

Michael Penning: Last year, I asked the Leader of the House if we could have a debate on leniency in sentencing guidelines. This followed a case in which a gentleman—I call him a "gentleman"—raped a 12-week-old baby and will serve less than four years in prison. On Friday in Plymouth, a mother, a grandmother and two aunts were sentenced to 100 days community service and a one-year suspended sentence after they filmed their forcing their children to fight each other. One child was in nappies and in tears throughout the event. May we have a debate on this sort of sentencing?

Jack Straw: First, I said last week that I would write to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General about what had been said. I have done exactly that, and either the Attorney-General or I will write to the hon. Gentleman.
	Secondly, all of us understand and, to a degree, share the concern about such reports, but we must also bear in mind that it is fundamental to our constitution that judicial decisions in trial at the point of sentence are made independently. We cannot get into a position of second-guessing those decisions simply on the basis of newspaper reports. Members are right to echo concerns and raise their own concerns about such cases, and I do not criticise the hon. Gentleman for what he has done. However, ensuring that there is a proper separation is vital for everybody. Of course, I will ensure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General is again made aware of the hon. Gentleman's concerns.

Jack Straw: The BNP is, as the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) said, a neo-Nazi party. When people read through its sedulous literature, they need to be very careful to appreciate and understand exactly what it is that they might be voting for and not vote for it.

Jack Straw: Of course I recognise the anxiety that a work force always feels when there is a change in ownership. However, private equity companies say that their record in terms of job creation is better than that in the economy as a whole, and that needs to be weighed in the balance. I cannot promise a specific debate on the issue, but with ingenuity and the agreement of the Chairman of Ways and Means, my hon. Friend might be able to find an opportunity to raise these concerns during the consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill at the beginning of next week.

James Clappison: May I support the request for a debate on the splitting up of the Home Office? No doubt the Leader of the House will loyally defend that, but is he aware that he is alone among former occupants of the post of Home Secretary in advocating it? The unlikely alliance of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) and the right hon. Members for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) and for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) is far from alone in questioning the wisdom of changes that will lead to one Department, the Home Office, being in charge of reducing offending, and another Department, a ministry of justice, being in charge of reducing reoffending.

Jack Straw: I saw that comment too. I do not feel lonely, but I am always grateful for the consideration that the hon. Gentleman shows for my welfare. If we examine experience elsewhere in other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, we see that the exact dividing line between interior and justice ministries varies. In some countries, the prison and probation services and the lead on criminal justice are with the Ministry of the Interior; in most countries, however, it is with the Ministry of Justice. That is what is to happen here. I do not believe that it is an earth-shattering change. Of course, there were bound to be some transitional issues, which are being worked through carefully. This has happened with considerable notice—unlike, if I may say so, many changes to the machinery of Government that happened under the Conservative Administration whom he will recall, which happened just like that.

Keith Vaz: Although I completely support the creation of a ministry of justice, I also support the call by the shadow Leader of the House and the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) for a debate on the matter, bearing in mind that this week Lord Woolf said that in his view Britain's unwritten constitution was being changed without consultation. Clearly, we need to modernise the system and to have a separate ministry of justice, but it is important that the House debates these issues before, in the words of the Home Secretary, they are fully embedded by the end of June and beginning of July—although the change will take place on 9 May. Please may we have that debate as soon as possible?

John Hayes: The Leader of the House knows that in December last year the Government began a consultation about giving votes in local and general elections to convicted prisoners. That followed an extraordinary judgment by the European Court of Human Rights that we should overturn the Forfeiture Act 1870, which forbids prisoners to vote. Given that the Liberal Democrats are going around the country campaigning for that—they want murderers, paedophiles and rapists to be able to vote—it is a matter of concern.

Philip Davies: May we have a debate on midwifery? Not enough student midwives are being trained and a significant number who are trained have no jobs at the end of their training due to a freeze on midwifery jobs. Given that the Secretary of State made another eye-catching headline a priority over Easter, may we have a debate to find how she will fulfil her promises without tackling the shortfall in midwives?

Adam Ingram: I will not engage in a debate about the apportioning of blame. The hon. Gentleman asked whether we could learn lessons, and the answer to that is yes. There is an imbalance between the location of some accommodation and the location of our requirements, and we need to think about innovative solutions. I mentioned the key worker living programme, which allows personnel to buy properties with considerably less capital than they would otherwise need. They can buy between 25 and 75 per cent. of a property on which they will pay a mortgage, and pay subsidised rent on the remainder.
	As the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) implied, no one has a monopoly on good ideas, and we are still looking for good and better ideas. We must be imaginative and innovative, and think not just about the here and now but about the profile of the next 10, 15 or 25 years. We must find better answers than we have so far, because this is undeniably an important issue.

Adam Ingram: Yes. We are thinking about how such a facility could best be delivered. It is definitely ruled in, not ruled out. Obviously there are staffing and other issues to be addressed, but any such facility, if it is established, is likely to form part of the Selly Oak centre. The train has left the station; we are simply trying to find the best solution.
	The Ministry of Defence's Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court is the premier facility for the rehabilitation of injured service personnel. There is nothing quite like it in the national health service, and facilities and staff are second to none. Its main purpose is to provide rehabilitation for those with complex injuries, including amputees and brain-injured patients. It also houses a new complex rehabilitation and amputee unit, which provides high-quality appropriate prosthetics and adaptations, manufactured on site and tailored to individual patients, for service personnel who have suffered amputations.
	At the heart of our responsibility to the armed forces is ensuring that they are trained to meet every situation that they may face. The training that our forces receive must be tough to prepare them for the demands of operations. We are always looking for opportunities for improvement, and ensuring that training adapts to reflect the increasingly joint nature of military operations.
	The defence training review will transform the way in which we undertake specialist training for all three services. Earlier this year we announced the decision to centre the engineering and technical training currently carried out at various locations around the United Kingdom at St Athan in south Wales. That will reduce the number of sites for specialist training by a third. St Athan will become a centre of excellence, with modern facilities and modern living accommodation. The process will begin in 2008, and will last five years. Our ambition is that by 2013 the new training academy will be fully operational. The result of the changes will be continued world-class training for our personnel, but in world-class facilities.
	I must emphasise the importance of training, tactics and procedures—TTPs—for the protection of our forces on operations. Too often, discussion of force protection becomes a debate about equipment. There is no doubt that that is important, but TTPs are as important, if not more so. The theatre-specific training that our people receive at UK facilities before they deploy—on Salisbury plain, or at Stanford or Hythe—is crucial to minimising the risks they face in Basra or Helmand. An important part of our commitment to our people is making sure that new recruits are properly looked after. They find themselves in unfamiliar surroundings, and often they are having their first experience of living away from home. The scale of this issue is significant. Last year, we recruited more than 13,000 to the Army alone, and 19,000 people across all three services. We have had to learn the tragic lessons of Deepcut—but learn them we have. I recognise and accept that there were deficiencies in resources and funding, but now we are doing a huge amount to ensure that those deficiencies are avoided in the future.
	The second report of the adult learning inspectorate—an independent body which we asked to look at what we did in training—was published on 6 March 2007. It identified areas of concern where further improvement was required, and I assure the House that we are focusing our efforts on finding answers to those concerns. However, the report also recognised the "extraordinary strides" forward taken in the past two years in the welfare of recruits. Against a backdrop of fiercely competing priorities, not least operations, we have invested some £73 million of additional funds in trainee welfare alone to date, with a further £50 million planned in the coming four years. One important recommendation was that there should be an independent service complaints commissioner. We are now in the process of recruiting for that post.

Adam Ingram: No, I want to make progress.
	I cannot comment on the contribution of defence to this country without talking about our armed forces veterans. As a mark of how seriously we take this issue, the Under-Secretary has the specific role of veterans Minister. This post was first created in 2001, and it has proved its worth year after year. The reason why is simple. Our veterans—young and old—are an asset to the country. Many of the young men and women who enter the forces emerge as skilled, responsible and highly qualified members of society. Of course, this year is a special year for many of our veterans, as we remember the Falklands conflict on its 25th anniversary. The sailor, soldier or airman of today is the veteran of tomorrow. We must make sure that we accord our veterans respect and care—at the level of involvement that they desire. In recognition of this, we have designated 27 June as Veterans day, which provides us as a nation with the opportunity to celebrate their contribution, to learn from their experiences and to respect their service. Last year, we held a very successful event in my constituency, and we intend to make it even more successful this year. We will probably be inundated with applications from people who want to participate. There are very good examples of such events, and we have also initiated a national campaign to encourage greater engagement. Members of this House have a major role to play in that regard.
	As I said at the outset, defence is above all about people—people from communities throughout the country who join our forces to serve their country. They rightly expect the support of the British public and of this House. I know how important that is to them as they go about their difficult and dangerous duties on our behalf. Their reputation has been built on the sacrifices made and achievements accomplished over many years, but also on the immense contribution that they make to the United Kingdom. This Government recognise that operational success depends on the quality of our people. We acknowledge our responsibility to ensure that they and their families are properly looked after. We must and will meet that responsibility.

Liam Fox: I begin by echoing the Minister's words about the sadness that is felt in all parts of the House concerning the service personnel who have been killed in recent days. All Members will have the families and friends of those personnel in our thoughts and prayers.
	This is an opportunity to make a wider point about the dedication and courage of our armed forces. In an era in which fewer and fewer people in our society have direct contact with the armed forces, too few nowadays understand the pressure on personnel—both regulars and reserves—and their families. Too many people believe that security is a right, and that freedom can come without any cost. We therefore need to remind the British public at every opportunity that security is a contract that has to be renewed by every generation, and that in our armed forces we have those with the skill and courage to make the sacrifices necessary to maintain our freedom and security. I am sure that both sides of the House will want that message to go out loud and clear.
	I agree with the Minister's final sentiments about the importance of veterans, the need for respect for veterans and the need to improve the services to them. In the years ahead, our society will have to come to terms with the changing pattern of veterans. Instead of being elderly citizens, such as those represented at the cenotaph, there will be many more younger veterans who will place different demands on the services we offer, and for a much longer time. The veterans of the Falklands, the Balkans and the first and second Gulf wars will put an increasing burden on many of the services that we have a duty to provide. The nature of the disabilities they experience will also change. Indeed, it has been striking, for those of us who have visited the injured in theatre, Selly Oak or rehabilitation, that the equipment provided, such as body armour, has reduced the number and types of disability. I hope that society will understand that we will need to provide a range of new services and support to those who have made sacrifices on our behalf.

Liam Fox: Indeed. I have witnessed that and I commend the professionalism of those involved—some of whom have left the NHS to work full time in our medical services on the front line. For instance, our field hospital in Basra has the notable distinction of not having had a single case of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the past four years, which is an example for the NHS to follow.
	Today's debate is a useful opportunity to discuss a range of defence issues other than those of Afghanistan and Iraq, which we have debated at length in the House. I shall touch on issues relating to welfare, the overstretch of our forces, procurement and the defence aspects of energy security—all issues that we should spend more time discussing in the House. Welfare issues cannot be separated from those of recruitment and retention—on which the House constantly focuses—because it is common sense that the easiest way to have a problem with retention is to have unhappy service families. In turn, the easiest way to have unhappy service families is to have unhappy service personnel. Therefore, it is incumbent on us to ensure that we consider the continuum of the services that we provide to service families.
	It would be churlish not to recognise the considerable amount of work that is being done in terms of service housing improvements. However, it would also be unfair to neglect to mention that the Armed Forces Pay Review Body said in its latest report that
	"a significant number of Service personnel and their families are likely to be housed in poor quality accommodation for 20 years or more."
	It also said that more than half of single living accommodation is bottom grade. I accept that much has been done in that area, notwithstanding the limitations on finance that the Minister mentions, but we need to give a higher priority to the quality of housing offered to our service personnel and their families. It will be a central element in our ability to retain numbers in our armed forces at a time when demography is against us in the years ahead.

Liam Fox: As I have just said, I welcome the efforts that the Government are making. Indeed, I have visited some excellent new service accommodation, but the programme is still moving too slowly. While I welcome the Government's positive efforts, I am sure that the Minister would agree that they should be speeded up to ensure that the problem is dealt with as quickly as possible.
	In my previous incarnation as a practising family doctor, I spent part of my time looking after the joint service Royal Army Educational Corps at the Defence School of Languages at Beaconsfield in south Buckinghamshire. In the morning I looked after the armed forces and in the afternoon I saw their families in my civilian practice. It seems to me that even now there is too much of a dislocation between the health care given to the personnel and that given to the families. I shall give just one example. All over the country, service families come to MPs' surgeries with the same problem. A family member is put on an NHS waiting list for treatment. The family is then moved to another part of the country and they go to the bottom of the waiting list there. They can be perpetually on a waiting list, penalised for being a member of a service family and never getting the health care they need. It cannot be beyond the wit of Government and the civil service to construct a scheme that means that service family members are not disadvantaged in that way. It is preposterous that every week constituents come and tell Members about the same problem, but nothing happens. I want to make a special plea to the Minister to make representations to the Department of Health to come up with some method to ensure that those people do not continue to be disadvantaged in that way.

Liam Fox: It would be with some fear that I would disagree with my hon. Friend about anything, but I am sure that he is right about this matter. Many of us who have followed the Afghanistan operation from the beginning have felt that Government planning has tended towards the rosy end of expectations. When Ministers were advised that matters might turn out less optimistically, they ignored that advice, largely for political reasons. The fact that we have had to make two reinforcements in Afghanistan is testimony to exactly the point that my hon. Friend makes.I fear that in the months ahead we may see further deployment of British troops for precisely the reasons he gives.

Liam Fox: As my hon. Friend knows, I have made that point in the House on a number of occasions, and I have recently discussed it with our colleagues in Washington, Canada and Germany, because there is no doubt that it goes to the core of NATO's continued existence. If NATO is to continue as an effective alliance, we need effective burden sharing. Communal security means communal burden sharing, so we need to look at a number of elements.
	It is clear that public opinion in Britain, America, Canada and the Netherlands—the countries with the heaviest load in the south of Afghanistan—is offended by the fact that so many caveats are attached to so many of the other forces operating in the country, even though they are our allies and partners in the operation. For example, the idea that some troops should not operate after dark seems nonsense to a country such as the UK. Not only do we have courageous and professional forces operating in Afghanistan, but our costs in terms of fatalities and casualties is much greater than for other countries.
	It is important that there is a wider debate in NATO, and I regret that the Riga summit in November missed a huge number of opportunities. It should have dealt with NATO's role, decision-making structure and funding. Proper burden sharing is needed, and there are questions about how NATO should undertake greater expeditionary activity and who should bear the costs, as well as who should be responsible for the defence of continental Europe. Those issues are parts of the burden that must be shared and we should be clear about all of them. An incoming Conservative Government would regard them as a priority, and we are actively discussing them with all our NATO partners to ascertain whether there is common ground for a wider look at how we carry out that burden sharing. All my colleagues on the Conservative Benches believe that if we cannot achieve better burden sharing it will be deeply damaging for NATO in the future.

Liam Fox: In the north-east, as the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) is no doubt about tell me, there is also a keen interest in those issues and their likely effects on employment. I believe that nowadays not even the most unreconstructed trade union leader believes that the role of the MOD should be to create jobs in the defence industry. There is a keen awareness that the best way to maintain jobs is to develop quality products that fulfil the needs of our armed forces and that exportability is key to work force stability and preferable to public money being used for labour market reasons rather than defence capability alone.
	The Government are to be commended for the defence industrial strategy and the work done by Lord Drayson, which has made an important contribution to the debate about future procurement— [Interruption.] No, there is no but. There will always be a tension between the need to maintain sovereign capability and the need to provide value for money for taxpayers. There is a balance to be struck between those who say that we must make everything in the UK to guarantee our total sovereignty and those who say that we should buy everything off the shelf in order to lower the cost to taxpayers.
	The answer to the problem was to some extent laid out in the defence industrial strategy. Clearly, we need to maintain sovereign capability in areas that are vital to our long-term defence. I believe that areas such as submarines and avionics clearly fall into that territory, although, as was mentioned earlier, the joint strike fighter is a case where we are looking to a partnership with the US for the shared technology for what will probably be the last manned fighter that we build. That may provide a useful model for the UK's future procurement strategy. On the other hand, it would be nonsense to say that body armour or trucks fall into the category of sovereign capability. In those and other areas, it makes sense to buy equipment off the shelf and ensure that it is made speedily available to our forces, rather than to invest in programmes in what would effectively be reinventing the wheel.
	Looking ahead to the necessary procurement processes and the strategic threats that we are likely to face, the priorities for a future Conservative Government would be capability, interoperability, adaptability and exportability. We actually wish to see an expansion of Britain's defence exports because that is the best guarantee of long-term sustainable jobs, but for my Treasury colleagues, there are also potential benefits to the taxpayer in a well thought out procurement programme. Let me provide two examples.
	The Hawk, developed under MOD funding in the 1970s, cost a total of £1.2 billion for development and production. Subsequently, more than 800 were sold around the world to customers including the US Navy, Australia, Switzerland and South Africa. The value to the UK economy amounted to more than six times the initial cost and the estimate of the return to the Treasury for those exports was about twice the initial outlay. That meant benefits to our defence base, benefits to our armed forces and benefits to our taxpayers.

Liam Fox: No, not for the moment.
	Another example is that of the Tornado. The cost of development and production to the UK was about £7 billion, while exports to Saudi Arabia under Government-to-Government arrangements based around the Tornado have been worth some £40 billion to the UK economy over the past 20 years.
	Not only does a healthy defence sector provide the UK with a high defence capability, but it provides a strong R and D platform for Britain's other industries, and it can maintain prosperity for the individuals in the industry and for taxpayers as well. However, a poorly thought through programme can be expensive to both industry and the taxpayer. We will be looking for major improvements in the procurement process as part of our review of defence and security policy.

Liam Fox: I not only refute but resent the implication of that question. Conservative Members have never played politics with that particular issue in any way and would never seek to undermine either the security or the prosperity of this country. The hon. Gentleman might want to have a word with the leader writers of  The Guardian.
	The final matter I want to deal with is energy as a security issue. There is now broad agreement about the environmental consequences of our addiction to oil and gas, but there are other immediate reasons to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Foremost is our national security. In the years ahead, national security, economic security and energy security will become increasingly synonymous. Our addiction to oil and gas means that we are increasingly dependent on the stability of producer nations to ensure continuity of supply. Additionally, we are increasingly exposed to the risk that these nations will use the supply of energy as a tool of foreign policy. Such "resource nationalism" has already become a cause of alarm in certain vulnerable states. We need look only at the actions of Russia towards the Baltic States, Ukraine or Belarus to see the phenomenon in action.
	There are two reasons why energy security has become a more urgent problem for the UK. The first is our increasing dependency on energy imports. Last year we became a net importer of gas and we are set to become a net importer of oil by 2010. Secondly, globalisation has brought a downside as well as an upside. I refer to our sophisticated interdependence and our inability to insulate ourselves from sudden downturns or disasters elsewhere. We are all competing for the same natural resources to feed our economies and we are more vulnerable to interruption of supply—either due to problems with supply itself or with distribution. The House can debate the global economy on a wider basis, but I believe that we have not yet developed the structures necessary to deal with the downside risk exposure that it brings.
	I shall focus briefly on Iran and Russia in relation to the military aspects of that particular threat. The United States Central Command—CENTCOM—military command in the middle east watches Iran very carefully. A recent report stated:
	"While generally thought to be for defense, Iran continues to build a credible military capable of regional power projection. It has the largest military capability in the region and a record of aggressive military action in and around the Arabian Gulf... Iran's ground forces are arrayed across the country with the majority of combat power along the Iran-Iraq border".
	We know that, potentially, Iran is capable of internationalising any dispute by blocking the straits of Hormuz, for example.
	All that is troubling and has been debated before, but what should be even more troubling to the House is the extent to which we have funded this defence capability. Iran's oil revenue has risen from $23.7 billion in 2003 to $47 billion in 2005. That economic windfall enabled the Iranian regime to undertake a spending spree on defence. Its defence budget has gone up greatly and it has purchased missile technology and small vessels in particular. Following assistance from North Korea, China and Russia, many analysts now consider Iran to be increasingly self-sufficient in the production of ballistic missiles. Obviously, that capability has received increased attention as a result of the country's nuclear ambition.
	Over the past five years, Europe alone has pumped $50 billion into the economy of Iran and an astonishing $232 billion into countries of the former Soviet Union—mainly Russia. Those are the figures for spending on crude oil alone; they do not even take into account financial transfers resulting from the sale of gas or petroleum products. For every $1 increase in the price of a barrel of oil, an extra $1 billion goes into the Kremlin coffers. That windfall has been used in both Russia and Iran to finance military build-up.
	In other words, we in the west are in a security Catch-22. Our dependence on oil means that we cannot avoid paying whatever price is demanded of us, which leads to huge financial flows out from our economy into the economies of oil producers, some of which might be hostile to us, and the money then finances a defence build-up. That situation is part of the threat that this country faces, so we need to understand and deal with it as a matter of urgency before it becomes even more detrimental to our national security. We believe that dealing with the situation should be the responsibility not of the EU, but of NATO, for the prime reason that that would bring Norway and Turkey into the process at a time when Turkey especially feels alienated.
	As I said earlier, this country has benefited from a largely bipartisan approach on defence. While there have been minor differences between the parties on the way in which we carry out the defence of our country, we seldom disagree about strategic issues. The Government will continue to get our support when we believe that they are doing the right thing, as they have done on Afghanistan, notably, and Iraq. However, if we are to defend our country successfully in the future, we must ensure that the welfare problems relating to our service personnel and their families are properly addressed and that procurement is dealt with sensibly and more efficiently. Operationally, we must understand that we cannot continue to overstretch our armed forces as we are doing now. We cannot continue to fight the battles in theatre that we are fighting without putting in place sufficient investment to ensure that we are able to carry out our mission successfully and guarantee the safety of the troops who put their lives and limbs on the line for the security of this country.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I agree. The dangers inherent in that delay are very important.
	Some people made the point that the Vanguard submarines took only 14 years to procure, but what was missed by many people is that that did not include the time taken to do the initial concept work, and that can easily take three years.
	I spent 20 years working in the defence manufacturing industry, and I have been a member of project management teams on major defence platforms. I know only too well that current projects are far more complex than Vanguard was. We should also remember that safety and regulatory standards have been raised in the 25 years since Vanguard was procured. Because of my experience in defence industry and the time that I spent on the Public Accounts Committee, I am only too well aware that British defence procurement does not have a very good track record. Given the long time scales involved we do not always learn the lessons quickly enough for them to have an impact on our new projects. It is to be hoped that the replacement of Vanguard will not suffer from legacy problems, but will benefit from the new proposals in the defence industrial strategy.
	Our defence industry is in a period of tremendous change. In this climate, getting public sector procurement right is difficult. The defence industrial strategy has been a major step forward in redefining the relationship between the MOD and industry, and it will deliver huge benefits in getting the right product to the front line, on time and on budget, and in maintaining that product during its operational lifetime.
	I am old enough to remember the old relationship between the MOD and industry in the days of cost-plus. The MOD decided what it wanted and chose a supplier; the supplier told the MOD how much it would cost to build; the MOD sent in an auditor to check the costs, added a percentage for profit and that was the price that was paid: very cosy, but hardly cost-efficient and not value for money. So we moved on to fixed price contracts and competition, where suppliers were pitted against each other to deliver the product at the lowest possible cost. Yes, it drove the price down, but there was a danger that, to secure the contract, suppliers would have to accept prices below the cost of manufacture and risk being unable to sustain long-term production, or ratchet up the price for product support, leading to higher costs over the life of the product. That is why I welcomed the defence industrial strategy's emphasis on a partnership approach and the recognition that there needed to be changes in the approach both of industry and of the MOD.
	The MOD needs to move to a through-life relationship with industry, to define a project not in terms of a product, but in terms of an outcome, and to have the ability to be flexible within a project to meet changing demands across a long life cycle. In my days on the Public Accounts Committee, time and again in our reports we highlighted a lack of project management skills in government, and nowhere was that more apparent than in the MOD's major projects.
	Industry needs to change too. It has to stop looking at the MOD as a customer to squeeze cash out of or a source of easy money, and to start seeing it as a genuine partner. It has to be willing to share the benefits of lean manufacture and cost reductions in return for the security of a long-running relationship.
	None of this is rocket science, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I could point you to an example in my own constituency where just such a partnering relationship exists—between the MOD, VT Shipbuilding and Fleet Support Ltd. Fleet Support delivers ship support and is seen by many to be the benchmark industry partner. It has developed an innovative joint working relationship with the MOD that has already delivered over £50 million of savings. VT Shipbuilding houses the UK's most modern and productive shipbuilding facility. So we have the defence industrial strategy in action, delivering cost savings. Where might that be? It is at Portsmouth naval base—yet another reason it should remain open.
	As I said before, there is a litany of MOD major projects where we can see where it all went wrong, but I hope that we are starting to learn the lessons from past mistakes and I want to illustrate that briefly with an example—that of Bowman. I am sure that hon. Members will be aware of the Bowman system. It is not just a radio but a complete tactical system delivering secure digital voice communications. It is a complex and technically demanding programme, involving the conversion of some 15,700 land vehicles, 141 naval vessels and 60 helicopters, as well as training some 75,000 personnel. As a consequence it involves many different and complex interrelationships between stakeholders in the Department, the armed forces and industry.
	We can see in the recent report from the Public Accounts Committee where the Bowman procurement process went wrong. The summary to the report states:
	"It is a complex and technically demanding programme and the MOD seriously under-estimated the challenges involved in both delivering it and sustaining it in service".
	There then follows a litany of the failures: not surveying the state of the Army's vehicle fleet; underestimating support costs; examples where the equipment met the requirements of the contract, but not of the user; and the failure to appoint a senior responsible officer right at the start with the responsibility, funding and authority to deliver the programme. Is it any wonder therefore that the development of Bowman suffered such serious delays?
	To be fair, in 2001 the MOD recognised that it was no good trying to patch things up with the original supplier and re-competed the contract, which was won by General Dynamics. That has proved to be a valuable partnership; indeed, it has been commended by the National Audit Office. Bowman is now delivering vital capabilities to soldiers on the ground. In a recent article in  Jane's Defence Weekly the NAO director Tim Banfield spoke about the Bowman programme. He put in a nutshell why we had so much difficulty with it. He said that it was a typical example of how the old-fashioned linear approach simply would not work in these days of rapid leaps in technology and the consequent changes in the needs of the user. He went on to say that because of the partnership working between the new contractor and the MOD integrated project team, Bowman, despite its "long and troubled history" and the fact that it is "still getting a bad press", was
	"actually delivering some really good and useful capability now".

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is absolutely right. My point is that we should use the history to learn lessons so that in future we deliver. Out in the field, as he said, the feedback is very positive. In Iraq, Brigadier Andrew Gregory said:
	"Bowman is giving us a real edge on operations".
	Brigadier Patrick Marriott said:
	"The potential of Bowman is immense, the reality is very good."
	We can look forward in 2007 to new kit that will enable Bowman to interface with other UK armed forces communications systems. In the field that means that a brigade commander can easily share information. We are also looking at new battery technologies that mean that we will be able to offer a much more powerful, lighter version.
	It is very easy for us always to criticise when things go wrong—maybe because things so often have gone wrong in major defence procurement projects—but let us celebrate the successes too. In the same article in  Jane's Defence Weekly, Tim Banfield said that there are "lots and lots" of successful UK defence projects, but the MOD was "not very good at celebrating"
	those successes. If we can achieve an honest and open relationship between the MOD and the defence industry—a true partnership—hopefully we will have more of the successes and fewer of the problems.
	I was a member of the Public Accounts Committee when it held an evidence session on Bowman, and I asked Bill Jeffrey, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, about the new partnership with General Dynamics:
	"Do you think that, if you had had that sort of relationship with the contractor right back at the beginning, it would have prevented some of the problems you have had?"
	He replied:
	"I think if we were starting from scratch with our present perception of what works best, which is, generally speaking, that it makes sense to think in terms of acquiring capability through-life rather than kit, we would have been looking at the acquisition of not just a radio system, but a radio system with the through-life support built into it."
	That concept of acquiring capability rather than a product must be the benchmark for future acquisition, and capability must be driven by the operational requirements of our armed forces.
	A few months ago, there was a report in  Warship World about potential reductions in the numbers of ships and about putting ships into reduced readiness, and I was quoted in my local paper as saying that I was "not hung up on numbers". That was misinterpreted to mean that I was happy to see big reductions in the numbers of ships, which is absolutely not the case. I am glad to have the opportunity to set the record straight today. We cannot consider the number of ships in isolation; we have to consider capabilities as well. More importantly, it should not be the number or the capability of ships that drives our defence strategy. Rather, we should set out clearly the role that we expect our Royal Navy to undertake, and then provide the right number of ships with the right capabilities to achieve the role.
	The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, has made it quite clear that we need the new carriers to meet the operational requirements of the Royal Navy. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for once again reiterating the Government's commitment to the carriers. I want the acquisition of the carriers to be one of the Ministry of Defence's success stories, and an example of genuine partnership between the MOD and industry. In Portsmouth, we eagerly await the announcement of the orders for those ships, not just because we hope to play our part in building them, and not just because we can demonstrate a track record in partnership working, but because we believe that Portsmouth naval base is the only feasible home port for the ships.

Bob Russell: I start by joining the Minister of State in expressing condolences to the families of those members of Her Majesty's armed forces who lost their lives in recent weeks. I also join him in paying tribute to those who, less recently, lost their lives in Afghanistan, Iraq and Northern Ireland. Nor should we forget the many men and women across the armed forces who have been injured while in service, and who have worked tirelessly. I also wish to put on record my appreciation for the work done, day in, day out, by members of Her Majesty's armed forces in the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, the Marines and the Army.
	As far as defence in the UK is concerned, clearly we cannot ignore Iraq; the war is arguably illegal, ill-planned and expensive. The Liberal Democrats are the only party represented in the Chamber today to have voted against it, but even we did not anticipate the drawn-out and continually alarming fallout from the ill-advised backing of President Bush's shock-and-awe misadventure. Quite apart from the awful cost of life to our service personnel, other armed forces in Iraq and the civilian population, there is the cost to the British taxpayer to consider, which is about £24 million a day. That price needs to be remarked on, because that money could well have been spent on other, certainly better, things.
	It is generally accepted, although not by those on the Government Benches, that there is overstretch. My concern is that the military covenant must be safeguarded, and even if it has not already been affected, there is a real danger that the continuous overstretch will undermine it. The impact of the Iraq war and our intervention in Afghanistan is taking its toll on the troops. It is important that troops feel valued and supported in their missions, and on their return. Our soldiers are the backbone of our fighting forces. The Government need to prioritise the welfare, fair treatment and conditions of service of those soldiers. Regiments and individual soldiers are being asked to do too much too often, without proper regard being paid to their welfare needs. Harmony guidelines have been consistently broken.
	The Chief of the Defence Staff says that the armed forces are "very stretched". However, last month in the House, the Secretary of State for Defence said in reply to a question that
	"We are not asking too much of our armed forces; we are operating at levels that are higher than the assumptions that informed our operational planning."—[ Official Report, 26 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 1139.]
	I think that we may be playing with words, here. Many in the armed forces believe that "overstretch" is the best description.
	Our current operational commitments in two theatres exacerbate the problem of overstretch and have a detrimental impact on recruitment and retention. There is an imbalance between current commitments and manning levels. It can be recognised that many members of our armed forces are still not paid sufficiently, given the hours and the work that they put in. Indeed, when they are working on an operation, the number of hours that they work means that they are on the equivalent of less than the minimum wage. It is essential to ensure that there are attractive packages available to our armed forces if we are continually to attract people to join the forces, and if we are to retain them.
	About 10 per cent. of people in the British Army are not British. They come from 57 different countries, predominantly Commonwealth countries. We have already heard mention today of the contingent of South Africans, particularly those in the Army. I know that there are many in 16 Air Assault Brigade in Colchester garrison, too. I ask the Under-Secretary to give us further clarification before the day is out. I know that there has been an intervention and an answer on the South African question, but it is a crucial issue that must be addressed more firmly than it has been so far.
	To go back to the huge number of non-British people serving in the Army, in one sense we should welcome that recruitment. Is there a cap, either official or unofficial, on the number of people from outside the United Kingdom who are recruited, and what percentage of the Army could be made up of non-British people from overseas before the Under-Secretary felt that the ethos of the Army had been affected? I do not necessarily mean that it would be affected negatively, but that it would cease to be what it has been hitherto. We also need to address issues such as accommodation—I shall come on to that later—mental health and care support. All of those feed into the recruitment and retention rates. It is not an isolated issue and it must be addressed as part of wider measures across the armed forces.
	I praise the Government for the Veterans Agency and the work relating to it. In particular, the veterans badge has been warmly welcomed by people of all ages who formerly served in Her Majesty's armed force. They welcome the opportunity to wear in pride a badge that shows that they served, at some time, in Her Majesty's armed forces—indeed, in some cases, in His Majesty's armed forces.
	Much important work relating to veterans issues was carried out by the voluntary sector, the Ministry of Defence and others before the veterans initiative was set up, but many of those areas of activity have been enhanced by Government Departments working in co-operation with the voluntary sector under that initiative. Among the many voluntary organisations involved, I single out the Royal British Legion—a wonderful umbrella organisation—but there are many other voluntary organisations and charities in the wider military family. The ministerial-level veterans taskforce has addressed issues of interest across government, which is to be welcomed, and the veterans forum is tackling specific issues that affect some veterans. The Department of Health, for example, is leading on long-term care for older people and the provision of treatment for mental health conditions, and the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister led on homelessness. Assisting ex-service personnel and their families to make a successful transition to society is another important service.

Kevan Jones: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that something that the Veterans Agency, the Ministry of Defence and the Government must look at is the number of ex-servicemen who end up in prison? I was shocked the other day by a letter that said that the Government do not know how many ex-servicemen are serving a prison sentence? Does he think that we should look at that to see whether the cause is possibly related to military service, which has led to those people being in prison?

Bob Russell: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's intervention. It is an interesting idea, but I have to confess that it is not something that I have any knowledge of. It is something on which the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office, as long as it retains the Prison Service brief, must liaise, because it is a valid point. Perhaps it does not relate to the issue that I was discussing, which was the successful transition to society of people leaving Her Majesty's armed forces, but I accept that some of those transitions end up with another Government department—Her Majesty's prisons.
	The armed services already provide comprehensive resettlement support for the majority of personnel leaving the forces to rejoin civilian life but, for various reasons, some personnel are not entitled to that support, so the need to identify and assist those in the group who are most at risk must be addressed. If the Government acted on the hon. Gentleman's concern, that could well bring in those who drift and end up in the criminal justice system. Homelessness and rough sleeping are a serious problem among ex-service personnel, quite a high number of whom end up on the streets, although the exact figures are not available. That is something that the Government should look at, and I should like to draw the attention of the Minister and of the House to early-day motion 664, which marks the 75th anniversary of the Ex-Service Fellowship Centres. It congratulates
	"the Ex-Service Fellowship Centres...on the occasion of the charitable organisation's 75th anniversary, January 2007; records with admiration that for three-quarters of a century the EFC has provided wide ranging support for homeless former members of HM Armed Forces; pays tribute to staff"
	and so on. The charity is an excellent organisation. I commend the early-day motion to the Minister, and urge him to consider whether it could be given Government support. In relation to veterans, too, I should like to stress the importance of working with local authorities and a range of other organisations to ensure consistency in the treatment of war pensions in means-testing for housing benefit and council tax purposes. There ought to be a formula so that every local authority recognises that and deals with it on an equal basis.
	I should like to discuss reservists, because, as has already been mentioned, their contribution plays an important part in defence in the UK. I endorse those comments and commend the reservists, who play a vital and integral role in the operation of our armed forces, especially given the current manning shortfalls. Reserve forces have been deployed at unprecedented levels over the past 10 years. They are highly adaptable, and bring skills from civilian life to the forces. I should like to place on record—and I am sure that the House concurs—our appreciation of employers of those individuals, whom they allow to become reservists, and provide time for them to train and be deployed when they are called up. However, the reservists are still below strength, and although there have been improvements, there is a high turnover, so we must ensure that we can maintain the necessary manning levels of reserve forces.
	The welfare and well-being of our troops are vital to retention and recruitment. In political debates and the media, much of the focus rests on the politics of war, conflict zones and the conditions in which our armed forces find themselves. Much less attention is paid to other aspects of life in the forces—life on the home front, so to speak—including the conditions in which the troops live, their welfare and care, and the issues that they face daily. It is therefore essential to ensure that, as well as looking after their welfare and safety in conflict zones, their physical and psychological well-being is provided for once they return and are away from the firing line.
	On accommodation, I pay tribute to the Government for the new accommodation in the Colchester super garrison. We could have a separate debate about whether the private finance initiative is the right route but, nevertheless, the housing that has been provided is first class, and the regiments are fortunate enough to have a very high standard of accommodation. However, that is not the case across the country, and soldiers still live in accommodation in many places that is well below standard. There are increasing concerns about the standard of housing and of married quarters in various places, and the issue was recently raised by General Sir Mike Jackson and, at the beginning of the year, by Lieutenant-General Freddie Viggers. The standard of some of our single accommodation is particularly alarming.
	While it is clear that not all accommodation is bad, recent MOD figures concede that about 49 per cent. is considered to be of bad quality. That is not satisfactory: we must ensure that Army housing is up to a good standard, and that we support personnel and their families. Ultimately, issues such as poor, substandard accommodation impact on the morale and well-being of our troops. Concerns have been raised, too, about the availability of housing for armed forces personnel and their families on leaving the Army. That is not a new issue, but it is much worse than it has ever been in all my many years of living in a garrison town. It is the soldiers who are paying the price of the ill-conceived and disastrous proposal by the Tory Government to sell the houses to Annington Homes, yet not include the upkeep of the accommodation in the deal. I invite the Minister to work out the sums. It may well be cheaper to use some of the Iraq money to buy back the MOD housing, using the pricing formula that was used for the sale, so that proposal is not quite as expensive as it might appear at first sight. Of all the privatisations, in percentage terms, that has got to be the biggest rip-off of the lot.

Bob Russell: I am aware of that, and I am grateful that the Select Committee made the recommendation, which I endorse. The hon. Gentleman should be asking those on his Front Bench what has happened since the recommendation.
	Right hon. and hon. Members who were at Education questions today will recall that I asked a question to do with the school meals service, and I named the three Army schools in Colchester which had their hot meals service taken away in April 2004 by Conservative-controlled Essex county council—admittedly, using legislation handed to it by the Labour Government. The simple fact is that while their dads are in Afghanistan or Iraq, the children back in Colchester are not able to have a hot school meal because the three Army schools, for whatever reason, do not provide it.
	My question to the Ministry is this: those schools are within minutes of the massive new kitchen arrangement in the super garrison that has been built, if the MOD can organise troops to go to Iraq and Afghanistan, can it not organise a system whereby hot meals can be taken from the garrison kitchens to those schools, so that the children of military personnel can have a hot midday meal, if that is the parents' wish? I leave the thought. It is not beyond the wit of the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Education and Skills to work together on that one.
	Service children often have very different lives from other children and are frequently moved around, according to where their parents are stationed. That can cause instability. It is important that there is as little disturbance to their education as possible and that staff understand the demands placed on them. Again, the Defence Committee should be commended for its recent inquiry on the subject. The turbulence factor is a vital part of the life of children of military personnel. I had an Adjournment debate on that a few years back. It is worth reading the record to see what the Minister at the time said and what action has been taken.
	Two or three years ago when the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) was Secretary of State for Education and Skills he had a meeting in my constituency, which I heard about an hour after he arrived, with the heads and chairmen of governors of the Army schools, and he pledged additional money for the those schools. There were photographs and newspaper articles. It is interesting that every time I have pursued the matter, the upshot is that no additional funding has ever been forthcoming. Indeed, because of the fluctuation in the school rolls, which can be more pronounced in schools attended predominantly by children of military personnel, those schools have fewer resources than they had when the then Secretary of State for Education and Skills promised more.
	Another issue which I would like the Government to take seriously are the cuts in the strength of the Ministry of Defence police. There has been a 40 per cent. cut at the Colchester garrison, which means that the military families, the military schools and the garrison areas outside the wire have less Ministry of Defence police cover than they had before. That does not help the situation. The Essex police are called upon to provide additional cover to make up for the MOD police cuts. That means that civilian areas elsewhere have their cover diluted.

Bob Russell: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. If anything, his scenario sounds worse than that in Essex. At some stage there was a consultation between the Ministry of Defence police, the Royal Military Police and the Essex constabulary, but I have never found out exactly when that took place. As the Minister knows, because I have asked parliamentary questions on the matter, there is now a joint police station out of which the three police forces operate. It could be said that that is a good idea. There has always been co-operation between the Royal Military Police, the Ministry of Defence police and the Essex constabulary. There is nothing new there, but sticking them in one building is almost a bit of bluff to give the impression that something new has happened. Yes, something new has happened, and it is to cover the fact that there has been a 40 per cent. cut in the Ministry of Defence police. That is not very sensible.
	I shall deal briefly with two further items. First, can the Minister comment on the issue of drug use among soldiers? I recognise that, in percentage terms, it is probably very low, but can he say whether it is true that the equivalent of a battalion or more a year are discharged because they have failed drug tests?
	Secondly, this year is the 25(th) anniversary of the Falklands war. Can the Minister advise the House in due course on what the precise commemorations or celebrations will be to mark that? Will he ask colleagues to look again at the position of those who served on RMS St. Helena and two other vessels. RMS St. Helena is the only means of communication to the island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic, which gave up its only means of communication to support the liberation of the Falkland Islands.
	It was not the fault of RMS St. Helena and its volunteer crew that they were outside the exclusion zone for as long as they were. They wished to play their part; they did play their part, but they were outside the zone for whatever the magical number of days the Ministry of Defence decided constituted justification for the award of a medal. It would cost nothing and put right a wrong if people who volunteered to serve to help liberate the Falkland Islands could have the medal that common sense says they should be awarded. That would cost nothing. Good will cannot have a price.
	On the defence of the UK, it was said earlier that few people now have direct knowledge of serving in Her Majesty's armed forces. The reduction in the size of the armed forces and the closure of many garrison bases and Territorial Army bases mean that there is less of a military footprint. The Government need to revisit the issue to see whether there is any way that they can try to get a military footprint or at least a military presence so that more people see soldiers, sailors and airmen even if not on a daily basis—clearly, that can happen only in places such as Portsmouth and the super garrison towns. The country would benefit if the military footprint were bigger than it currently is.

Linda Gilroy: To follow on from the point made by the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), it is always a pleasure to take part in these debates, but it is a pity that there are not more Members here from constituencies that do not have a military footprint. Their presence would be one way of ensuring wider knowledge of the issues that we debate.
	I want to talk about some procurement and welfare issues and to conclude with some points about the naval base review. I start by noting, on a strategic level, the publication by the Cabinet Office on 27 March of its capability review of the Ministry of Defence. As well as outlining the areas where significant improvements can be made, I want to note where it recognises the many strengths and successes of the MOD.
	The capability review says that the MOD is highly regarded both domestically and abroad. I do not think that that will be news to many in the Chamber, but the review says that the Defence Management Board has not always clearly articulated how this links to strategy and delivery. The report recommends that the board take a
	"stronger corporate role in directing strategy, developing and allocating resources."
	The review also notes that the Department has made significant progress towards the creation of an integrated MOD by joining up work among the three armed services and civilian staff and that it is very much open to change. However, it also says that the DMB needs to articulate how to link the vision of the Department with strategy and delivery. It needs to create a "corporate narrative" that will unify Department purposes and give clarity to its missions.
	The report recognises that a vision has been set out in the strategic defence review and the 2003 White Paper on defence strategic guidance and the defence industrial strategy, which provide help in carrying out this vision. However, more needs to be done. Although the MOD has been very focused and successful in delivering short-term outcomes, the review says that that is sometimes at the expense of its long-term planning. While planning and resource allocation, as well as processes to inform decision making, are in place, there is a lack of clarity around roles, accountability and authority. It draws attention to the way in which approvals and decision making are often multi-layered and tend to get mired in paperwork. The Department's intensity and focus on short-term tasks inevitably impacts on the time available to consider, and deliver on, the longer-term issues.
	The capability review concludes that the permanent secretary has already recognised the need to drive through a series of changes designed to achieve improved MOD efficiency, as well as effectiveness. It identifies three key areas for action that will complement his programme of reform and help to achieve the step change in departmental capability which he seeks and which he has outlined to the Defence Committee in his appearances before us. The recipe that the review lays out includes a review of leadership behaviours, governance and accountability. It says that the Defence Management Board must become a more corporate body and find ways of communicating as one voice. It needs to promote the defence agenda more effectively—an aspect that has featured in several debates in the House—and has a role to play in engaging with other Departments to promote a wider understanding of defence and the wider context in which the operations that we often debate take place. It should market its work and build upon its strengths in analytics and operational research. It also needs to build human capacity, and the report outlines how it might better do that.
	As a member of the Defence Committee, I look forward to seeing the fruits of the change programme in delivering better support—perhaps, in the light of the compliments paid by our report, I should say even better support—to those working in logistics, in procurement and in theatre. It is of course the role of the Committee to scrutinise delivery in all those areas. In the debate in February, I spoke about the range of inquiries in which we have been involved. We have before us several interesting areas for scrutiny, including health, defence estates and strategic lift, as well as visits and inquiries into deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. I hope that there will be plenty of opportunity to debate the findings of those inquiries. Although the Committee is careful to praise the Department when praise is due, it is of course looking for areas that need to be put right or improved. Media and parliamentary interest in our reports naturally tends to focus on those aspects.
	I want to use the time that I have today to reflect on some of the advances made in matters that have been of concern to members of the Committee and, given the importance of defence to our constituents, to many Members on both sides of the House who do not serve on the Committee. The first topic that I want to examine is that of health services. We will be carrying out an inquiry on that, but I have briefed myself on where things stand at the moment, and the latest information that I have to hand deals with some of the matters that have been raised in the debate. Personnel returning from operations for treatment in the UK usually go to University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation trust, which is one of the country's top performers and home to the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine. On average, the number of military in-patients—this is relevant to the question of how to achieve an all-military treatment centre for returning officers in NHS hospitals throughout the UK—totals about 60 to 75 personnel: not a very great number.
	Last year, the Government announced a multi-million-pound package of benefits for injured service people and their families, including community psychiatric and nursing support. That was criticised earlier. Nevertheless, the value of the contract with the Priory Group for in-patient psychiatric services is some £4 million per annum; and 15 military community mental health departments have been established across the UK so that such services can be delivered to personnel near to their home, unit or base. I hope that that has been mentioned as an important part of the support to our returning service personnel and that we will include it in our forthcoming Select Committee inquiry.
	Whenever practical, military patients in Birmingham are allocated to one of the 12 military consultants co-located at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, and the Government have introduced improved travel and accommodation arrangements for families who visit patients at Selly Oak. The military-managed ward was mentioned earlier, and I understand that it has reached initial operating capability. It is based in a trauma and orthopaedics ward, where a significant proportion of military patients are treated. Since August, the Government have more than doubled the number of military nurses on the military-managed ward at Selly Oak and, by the end of the month, there will be 26 military nurses and health care assistants—up from 12 last August. By the summer, the number will have increased again.
	That advance is reflected in the words of the Chief of the General Staff in March. He puts it better—and perhaps more credibly—than any of us might. He said:
	"I spent most of yesterday at Selly Oak on a planned visit as I go fairly regularly to see the progress that we're making. There are two bays, six bed bays substantially filled with soldiers, they are now together, they are bantering as soldiers like to do and they are getting better because they are together. Six months ago that was not the case.
	I and others raised that to people's attention, it's been changed and quite shortly it will be going a little bit further than that and the end of the ward where most of the military patients are will be partitioned substantially off. There'll be 14 beds predominantly available for military people. There was an issue, we have responded to it, it is getting better, and it's really important that that message goes across because it affects potentially morale of the soldiers on the front line, it affects potentially morale of medical staff and critically it also potentially affects the morale of the civilian National Health staff at Selly Oak who I desperately need to do what they do to make our soldiers better."
	There is a message in that quote to us, which is that we need to be careful about the way in which we raise such issues and that we must debate them constructively. We also need to keep up to date with what is going on and progress on the matter that I have just considered is only one example of the problems that the Secretary of State and his team are effectively tackling.
	Looking forward to another review, I acquainted myself with the scale of the Ministry of Defence's contribution to providing property through the Defence Estates agency. I realise that the Ministry is Britain's largest property manager, maintaining and upgrading 49,000 houses and 150,000 single-bed living spaces, spread over dozens of sites in 16 countries from the Falklands to Germany. That presents a huge challenge.
	In 2005-06, the Ministry spent some £700 million on housing and other living accommodation. In some areas, it appears to be exceeding its improvement targets, as I said in an intervention. For 2006-07, I understand that good progress is being made against the target to upgrade more than 1,200 service family houses. The Ministry will spend £5 billion in the next decade on housing and other living accommodation, with plans for a further 35,000 improved bed spaces in barracks and to continue to improve approximately 1,000 service family properties a year.
	Defence Committee members will examine the value for money that Defence Estates provides. Armed forces personnel and their families deserve decent accommodation as well as the other decent services to which hon. Members have referred. The widely reported problems must be tackled. That is a top priority and it must continue to be one. That is why the Defence Committee has made accommodation one of its top priorities.
	The Government are improving our support to service personnel who wish to buy property. We heard about the difficulties of accessing education and health services. As service personnel leave the armed forces, they often experience difficulty in getting on to council housing lists. Several hon. Members and I have signed an early-day motion on that subject. However, the answer to the problem is often to assist service personnel who wish to buy their own property. There is an ongoing programme of work with the Department for Communities and Local Government and private companies to give personnel access to shared ownership and joint equity housing schemes: for example, through participation in the key worker living programme.
	The issue of helicopters has preoccupied the Defence Committee in a number of its inquiries. As I understand the current situation, commanders on the ground have said that they now have enough helicopters to do what they need to do. During his recent visit to theatres in Afghanistan and Iraq, however, the Secretary of State for Defence decided to provide more helicopters and increased flexibility. Perhaps because that is good news, it has not received the heightened press coverage that some other issues have had recently.
	I certainly welcome the Secretary of State's announcement last month that 14 additional helicopters will be made available for military operations over the next couple of years. I understand that the MOD is buying six new Merlin helicopters, which will be available within a year, and converting the eight existing Chinook mark 3 helicopters to make them available for deployment in theatre in two years. The complete package represents an investment of about £230 million.
	The Chinook mark 3 helicopters were ordered under the previous Conservative Government in 1995, and delivered in 2001. Since then, they have been unavailable, due to well reported technical problems. The Secretary of State has decided that, given the high priority attached to supporting current operations, and the many representations that he has received from across the House, the best solution is to convert those helicopters to a battlefield support role and get them into theatre for use.
	The Defence Committee continually urges our NATO partners to do more—a subject on which the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), who is just about in his place, engaged in lively debate earlier. The Committee is, of course, conducting an inquiry into NATO and its future, and sometimes—particularly when the Committee is devoting resources to the question—it is worth waiting for the outcome of such inquiries before shooting from the hip on certain issues.
	Vehicles have been of great concern over the past year. Again, the Secretary of State has ensured that such requirements are attended to with the urgency that they deserve. Last summer, he implemented a rapid review of our protected patrol vehicles, after concerns were expressed that they were not suitable to withstand improvised explosive devices at roadsides. In July, after only a month, he announced a range of new or accelerated vehicle programmes to meet the evolving threat. Those vehicles are now in theatre. In Iraq, the UK forces in Basra are equipped with a mix of Warrior armoured infantry fighting vehicles, the Bulldog and the Mastiff, as well as retaining some of the Snatch Land Rovers that were the subject of such controversy but remain suited to tasks due to their manoeuvrability and low profile.

James Arbuthnot: I understand that it is all my fault. I understand that on my first day as Minister for Defence Procurement, I bought those helicopters. The first I heard of it was about three years ago, when apparently they would not fly in clouds.
	I gather that one of the problems was the change in requirements that was introduced after the Conservatives unfortunately left office, along with the fact that at a time when new digital helicopters were in operation, these helicopters were part-digital and part-analogue, which made them extremely difficult for everyone to manage. If anyone must take the blame, however, it must be me.

Kevan Jones: May I say how pleased I am to contribute to this timely and important debate? No one can get away from the fact that our armed forces are under tremendous pressure at the moment—not just overseas, but in the UK. As the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) said, we are in a new era in which the certainties of the cold war have gone. The threat now is from international terrorism at home and abroad, and the methods of dealing with those problems in the new security world are very different. That challenges the Government to respond to the threat, while putting great pressure on our armed forces to recognise that we live in a different and dangerous world.
	Along with the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire, I was privileged to visit Afghanistan last week and see that the men and women of our armed forces are working tremendously hard and with great dedication. It was rather odd to see a submariner in Kandahar miles away from the sea, but the men and women we met in all three services were working tremendously hard. I have to say that morale was very high. However, I sometimes think that we forget the pressures on the families left at home and the great worry they go through when their family members are on active operations throughout the world. Indeed, I would like to concentrate on the welfare issues in today's debate.
	The Minister referred to the formation of the new armed forces independent complaints commissioner. Like other hon. Members in their places today, I was privileged to be a member of the Select Committee that considered the Armed Forces Bill, which was good legislation. It went through a pre-legislative scrutiny phase in which many important issues were discussed in depth. I was pleased that, following the Blake report, the Government adapted the Bill to introduce a new armed forces commissioner.
	No one can underestimate the damage caused by the revelations about Deepcut and the stories that we heard when the Defence Select Committee produced its report in the previous Parliament on the duty of care to young servicemen and women. I also have to say, however, that some of the media coverage was irresponsible and caused some unwarranted damage. I believe that the armed forces commissioner will help to provide a method of restoring some independence in dealing with complaints, and I hope that the post will be introduced as speedily as possible. I am a little worried that a lot of legislation that the House passes is left to the sausage machine of the civil service to enact. I am pleased that the advert for the armed forces commissioner has gone out, but the House and the Defence Committee will have to monitor the situation to ensure that the body is set up as quickly as possible.
	In this media age, it is becoming quite clear that the men and women serving in our armed forces and their families will not sit back quietly and accept everything they are given. Instead, they will raise matters affecting the welfare of individuals and their families. I tabled new clause 23 to the Armed Forces Bill, although the Government did not accept it, which would have formed an armed forces federation. I am not proposing that there should be a trade union for the armed forces because that would be neither helpful, nor the way forward. However, there is increasing dissatisfaction about welfare issues, but, unfortunately, there is no mechanism through which people can express their views and get the recompense that some serving members of the armed forces and families deserve.
	If hon. Members want an example, I suggest that they log on to the army rumour service website, which is very entertaining on occasions. Let me cite a recent post on the website. An ex-serviceman wrote:
	"There are ... an increasing number of aspects that impact on a soldier's life that have little to do with the military. You will note the problems of debt, taxes, passport issues for our soldiers recruited from the commonwealth, family assistance issues; now, so heavily emphasised".
	The post recognises the pressures on family life that are caused by separation from family and loved ones. It continues:
	"These are not strictly military issues and go beyond the chain of command. It distresses me, a retired soldier, to see that in these areas over the past 30 years there has been no improvement."
	On 30 October 2006, the British Armed Forces Federation gained legal status as a company limited by guarantee. I would like the federation to be recognised as a body that can represent the views of men and women serving in the armed forces, and they should be allowed to join it. People say that that would be a radical step forward that would affect the chain of command, but our men and women are serving overseas in Afghanistan and other theatres with Australian and Dutch personnel and individuals from other international NATO partners, all of whom have similar types of federations.
	The federation is carrying out important work by not only lobbying for improvements in housing, but giving personal legal advice on not just the compensation-culture end of the spectrum, but family matters at home. Such a range of services will increasingly be needed by a lot of members of our armed forces. I pay tribute to Douglas Young and others involved in the initiative. Sooner or later, this Government, or a future one, will have to recognise that we need a body that can be a vehicle for highlighting the problems faced by members of our armed forces and for expressing their anxieties. Such problems and anxieties will only increase as we ask our members of the armed forces to do more on our behalf in difficult situations.
	We have already heard about accommodation, and the federation's website shows that it is one of the most important issues to people. It is rather sad that media reports over the past few months have ignored the great work that has been done to put more money into accommodation for the armed forces. As the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) said, however, we cannot ignore history. The Conservatives have to take some responsibility for the sale of MOD accommodation, which was not a good deal for the taxpayer, as the hon. Gentleman said. Having researched my speech for today, I have to say that I agree with the former Prime Minister, Lord Callaghan, who said in 1996:
	"In the 1980s the Government preferred to cut taxes rather than look after the living conditions of the Armed Forces. They preferred to win a general election, even if it meant that water poured through the roofs and ceilings and homes in which service personnel were living."—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 11 July 1996; Vol. 574, c. 455.]
	Is every single unit of accommodation going to be upgraded overnight? No. However, another brave decision by the Government, which will improve armed forces accommodation, is to get rid of the arms plot and to develop super bases. The hon. Member for Colchester tells me that some of the new family accommodation coming on-stream is of a very high quality. That will help us to achieve the standards that the families of our armed forces personnel deserve. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) made the point that over the next 10 years some £5 billion will be spent on armed forces accommodation.
	We must not ignore the issue. Clearly, the Conservatives have jumped on a bandwagon, but the matter has been raised by members of the Army Board. Lieutenant-General Viggers recently said:
	"The issue we have is that there is still too much accommodation which is of a poor standard, which is old, and which is not modern in the way it's fitted for families".
	He went on to say:
	"It's a key issue in what we call the military covenant—giving our soldiers and their families what they deserve in return for what they do for us."
	I do not think that anyone in the House could disagree with that or with some of the comments made by General Sir Mike Jackson.
	I temper that by saying that members of the Army Board should realise that they speak from a privileged position. Last year, the rent for the accommodation for the four generals came to £82,000, and if one adds in the cost of their gardeners, cooks and various other items, over £600,000 was spent.
	Is the plan to improve accommodation going to be a quick fix? No. We ought to congratulate the Government on what they are doing to try to improve accommodation, not just here but abroad.
	Some of the reporting of the medical treatment for members of the armed forces who are wounded in action has been sensationalist and outrageous. I have visited Selly Oak hospital, which I think is a fantastic facility. Using it is the right approach, as it has the necessary specialisms and the throughput of people means that expertise and skills are kept up to date. We must always be mindful of the fact that mistakes will be made in individual cases. However, I urge colleagues not to pick one example and then say that everything is wrong, because it quite clearly is not at Selly Oak.
	The right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire has already made the point that the Defence Committee will conduct an inquiry into medical services. One issue that needs consideration, and on which I hope the Select Committee will concentrate, is what happens when people leave the military and interact with their local primary care trust or acute hospital. That is important not only in cases of physical injury but, perhaps more so, in mental health services, where there is a gaping hole. We need to aim for a seamless service between the medical services that the military provide and those in the local community. There should be no gap in which people can sometimes be lost. Mental health problems are increasingly going to be an issue for people in stressful situations fighting wars. For perhaps the first time in my life I agreed with the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) when he said that this is the Cinderella service, not only in the military but on civvy street.
	I was shocked to read in a letter that no one knows how many ex-servicemen are in prison, and no work has been done on how they got there. I congratulate the Government on setting up the Veterans Agency, which, as the hon. Member for Colchester said, has done a great job, not just in recognising veterans, but in its rough sleepers initiative and in its other projects. Work needs to be done on how many ex-military personnel are in prison, how they got there, and whether becoming involved in a life of crime was a result of experiences that they had in the military.
	I was shocked by the approach of the hon. Member for Woodspring. He said that there was a bipartisan consensus on defence, but I have to say that over the past few weeks and months I have not seen a great deal of evidence of that attitude among members of the Conservative party. They are becoming as good as the Liberal Democrats at jumping on bandwagons, and if it was an Olympic sport they would certainly win a gold medal. The comments made about Afghanistan highlight that. Things change in theatre, and it is important that if something goes wrong we do not create an urban myth that the problem has been continuing for ever.
	I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman's description of Afghanistan is complete nonsense, and it is factually incorrect. I was there last week with the Select Committee on Defence, and I pay tribute not just to our men and women, who are working tremendously hard, but to some of our NATO allies—the Dutch, the Canadians, the Americans and the Australians, to name a few—who are working very hard, too. They are doing more than just contributing militarily; they are fighting very hard and are making a good contribution, but because the media do not concentrate on it, there is no recognition of the contribution being made by some of our new NATO allies, including the Baltic states and Romania, which are bringing troops and equipment to Afghanistan. The situation is new for them, and we should not criticise and snipe at them but congratulate them.
	A lot of nonsense was talked about caveats. I went out and got a copy of what General Richards said to the Defence Committee the other day. The right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire asked him about caveats, and his response was:
	"You are as well aware of the issue as I am. Troop numbers are the real issue...Moving troops from the North to the south would not have helped...So in answer to your original question it was an increase in the overall number of troops, not caveats"
	that was the issue. To regurgitate the issues, and to say that our NATO partners are not working closely and doing a tremendous job in Afghanistan, is naive and not very helpful in our fight against terrorism in that country.
	In conclusion, we should remember the debt that we owe our men and women in the armed forces. We should recognise that they are doing a tremendous job on our behalf, and we should support them when things are wrong. When something goes wrong, we should not say that everything is wrong, because clearly there are a lot of men and women in our armed forces who are working very hard. The media—and, on occasions, some of us—need to be careful that we do not knock the morale of those people, who are working in dangerous and difficult circumstances.

Nicholas Soames: I agree with a great deal of what the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) has said, particularly about the way in which the media report military matters. They pretend to be the great friends of servicemen and women. When anything goes wrong—and when things go wrong, it can be very bad—it is deeply shocking because it is truly unusual, and I commend him for making that point.
	I wish to pay my tribute to servicemen and women, including members of our reserves and the Territorial Army, and their long-suffering wives and often much put-upon families. I also pay tribute to the civilian staff across the whole defence establishment. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) referred to our magnificent defence industry, which is an important sector of British industry and makes a tremendous contribution to this country. I, too, for my own small part, offer my profound respects and thoughts to the families of the fallen, and I wish a speedy and full recovery and return to duty where possible to those who have been wounded in the service of their country.
	Thinking about what I was going to say today, I realised that in about two weeks' time it will be 25 years since the Royal Navy at dawn on Friday 21 May, under the very eyes of the enemy's guns, missiles and aircraft, on the hostile shores of a coastline 8,000 miles from home, put ashore on San Carlos bay a combined taskforce of all arms which, in under 16 days—16 hard days—recaptured the Falkland Islands. It was one of the greatest feats, if the not the greatest feat, of combined operations since D-day, and was accomplished by boldness of conception, superb planning and determination, and formidable skill at arms. We should remember with pride and gratitude the achievements of the Falklands taskforce.
	The strategic defence review that followed the 1997 general election was by and large supported by everyone. It was, in many respects, a remarkable piece of work and, in my view, it should have been undertaken by a Conservative Government. It had a great deal to recommend it, and its conclusions were, in my judgment, entirely correct, but the support of the service chiefs and of Her Majesty's loyal Opposition was conditional on funding being made available to make its conclusions a reality. That funding was not forthcoming, and as the right hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon), the then Labour Secretary of State for Defence, said in 2003:
	"Since the strategic defence review our Armed Forces have conducted operations that have been more complex and greater in number than we had envisaged. We have effectively been conducting continual concurrent operations, deploying further afield, to more places, more frequently and with a greater variety of missions than set out in the SDR planning assumptions."
	I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) for drawing that remark to my attention.
	It is therefore important to say two very important things. First, the services are now seriously underfunded for the task in hand and, secondly, a coach and horses has been driven through defence planning assumptions, which must be revised as a matter of urgency. It is interesting to look at the military establishment, as Defence Equipment and Support puts into practice a proposal made by my party at the last election to merge the Defence Logistics Organisation and the Defence Procurement Agency. Defence Equipment and Support does everything that it possibly can on a very urgent basis to make sure that our people have the right kit and equipment in the field, and it takes considerable risks and cuts every possible corner to do so. Compare that with the top—the Ministry of Defence, the defence establishment and the whole machinery of government, which are still firmly mired in a peacetime process, without any visible sense of urgency. The malign influence of the Treasury is ever present, sitting on their shoulders.
	Defence planning is notoriously difficult, but the lessons of history teach us, without exception, that every major emergency involving the British services in the past 25 years was almost completely unforeseen. I include the Falklands campaign in 1982, the Gulf in 1991, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Macedonia, Iraq and now Afghanistan, to say nothing of the emergencies at home, including the fuel crisis, the foot and mouth emergency, firefighting and the terrorist attacks of July 2005. The ill intention towards us can wreak havoc in a way that would have been unimaginable a short time ago.
	The question that needs to be asked is whether, in the light of events, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence believe that the world is becoming a safer place. None of us knows any serious commentator or observer who thinks so. There is every likelihood that our services will be required to do more, rather than less, over the next decade and for the foreseeable future. I see no likelihood of the tempo of operations diminishing or the requirements for combat, peace enforcement, peace support and humanitarian relief growing any less, and I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm that when he winds up.
	In the longer term the growing threat from climate change and sudden catastrophic environmental disaster must be considered, as well as the stability of Governments and states in parts of the world where we have considerable interests, and the activities of non-state actors such as major terrorist groups and international cross-border crime syndicates. We live in a globalised world. What happens in Pakistan, the middle east or the horn of Africa affects us. It is not possible to say that we will avoid involvement. We do not and will not always have the luxury of choice in that regard. It would be irresponsibly risky and dangerous to predicate our future policy and budget purely on avoiding trouble.
	As I say, events have breached the defence planning assumptions asunder. The services are seriously underfunded and operating at the very margins of what is sustainable, particularly the Army. It is necessary for the present Government or whoever will follow them to make crucial judgments on investments to create balanced forces that can adapt quickly to the demands of new crises. I have no high hopes, for, as our armed forces are engaged in a full-on high intensity war fighting operation, the machinery of government is mired in a peacetime mentality.
	As Lord Guthrie, a distinguished former Chief of the Defence Staff, has wisely said, operations are being conducted successfully today, but they cannot be maintained at their present tempo on current human and equipment resources and funding for much longer, without inviting a dramatic deterioration in capability and performance in the not too distant future and risking operational failure. It is a long time since any former Chief of the Defence Staff has made that so plain.
	I want Ministers to understand that there is no need for us to have a political argument about this. I agree with the hon. Member for North Durham. When he meets troops in Afghanistan who are really doing the business, of course their morale is high. They are well trained and they are some of the most remarkable troops in the world. Generally speaking, however, our armed forces feel taken for granted and undervalued. That must be fixed. At the minimum, there needs to be an uplift of the defence budget to produce balanced forces more appropriate for the times we live in and the tasks they are being asked to undertake. The Army, in particular, is in grave need of extra money if it is to continue to conduct operations at the current rate.
	Many others more experienced and cleverer than I believe that when it comes to policy making and strategy, the military chiefs are shut out of the major decisions and Ministers being told the truth about life and death in the real world. I think that I am not alone in finding it extraordinary that when the Prime Minister travels to the United States—for example, to deliberate with the President on really important matters of life and death to this country involving the deployment and use of British armed forces—that he is not accompanied by at least the Chief of the Defence Staff and other senior officers. Had more of their views on the post-conflict problems of Iraq been listened to, many of those problems would have been diminished.
	The next Conservative Government will need to ensure that senior commanders have a far greater input into policy at the very highest level. The Conservative Government will wish, I hope, to return to the chiefs of staff the public authority that they once exercised and to make clear, for example, that far greater account is taken of their views in some of those major decisions.
	I want to finish reasonably soon, but I must bang on about something that I have spoken about in every speech in a defence debate that I have made in the House for about the past 10 years. Very little attention has been paid to what I have said, so I will have one more go about an issue that is absolutely fundamental to our armed forces. I do not want to sound like Colonel Blimp, but this issue matters very much. I want to say a few words about training and discipline.
	It is not an idle boast, and it is true to say, that the British Army and the British armed forces are man for man the best fighting force in the world. In the Falklands, in the Gulf, in Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and, most recently, in Iraq and Afghanistan, both their enemies and their allies have been truly amazed at their fitness, determination, courage, professionalism and, of course, their humanity. That is why what happened to the Royal Navy the other day is so truly shocking. I was in Washington last week and was touched by the solicitude of our American friends at what had happened to the Royal Navy in this particular case.
	The answer is simple and I suspect not well understood much outside the armed forces. In no other army in the world, can a soldier depend on the men around him in the way that they can and do in the British Army, and they are doing every day of the week in Helmand and Basra, as the hon. Member for North Durham and the Select Committee will have seen. From Waterloo to Alamein, from Goose Green to the Euphrates and from Bosnia to Basra and Helmand, the British soldiers, commandos and all those others fighting on the ground have proved time and again that they can face the most tremendous odds and triumph. If one asks a soldier what the key to that confidence is, they will immediately say that it is discipline, training and trust in the chain of command. It is therefore a matter of the first importance that the system that produces young men and women of this calibre must not be altered in such a way that it will produce only pale imitations of what is required.
	So far the Army has just about held the line, but it is a constant battle for all three services to fight off politically correct notions that are profoundly dangerous when it comes to operations and training and absolute anathema to the ethos of the armed forces.

Bruce George: I am sorry to show how bipartisan the report was.
	Therefore, Governments fail. At the beginning of this Government, I remember making what I thought was an amusing speech, which I called the A to Z of Tory procurement—the Clerks advised "foul-ups" as the final words. I said at the time that the speech had been made too soon, and now is the time to accuse the Labour party of making procurement mistakes.
	All Governments make mistakes. They should at least have the humility to know when mistakes have been made, and look to history to try to avoid such mistakes in the future. The history of the British armed forces over the past 200 years shows an oscillation between intense effort to meet a sudden threat and—almost in a matter of days after the threat was over and military victory had been achieved—the inevitable descent in expenditure and recruitment. Once again, having bottomed out, a crisis emerges and the situation must be repaired in a short space of time.
	What are the current dangers? We have all said that we now look back on the cold war almost as the halcyon days. We knew the enemy then: all the Germans looked like Anton Diffring, and the Russians all looked like Russians. Now, however, we live in a different world. The threat is different, but I fear that some of the cold war threats and problems will sneak back. There was a time when the cold war had apparently ended, and we were in our euphoric phase. With Gorbachev, Yeltsin and the beginning of democracy, we were in a loving embrace with Russia—no longer the Soviet Union—with NATO training the Russian military and good words all round. Anyone who thought that that would last in perpetuity had no knowledge of, interest in or wish to gain the experience of history.
	It is too soon to start getting paranoid about developments, but we need to be aware of them. Russia went through an humiliating period, and is now coming out of it. The British and others helped Russia to develop its oil and gas industry, and now, understandably, it is becoming increasingly wealthy and self-confident. We are beginning to hear phrases which, if not alarming, are cause for concern.
	The cold war created the need for cold war expenditure and action. Then we entered a period in which people said "Well, there is only one superpower now. All is going swimmingly. Russia is no longer a threat, and China does not really count." We are moving into a different era now. We are no longer in a unipolar state; we are in a multipolar state. We are seeing a multiplication of ownership of nuclear weapons, and countries with significant grievances. As I am sure other Members have pointed out, we face a new range of threats. There are environmental threats, and of course there is the growth of terrorism.
	We are having to deal with those new threats, but we may also face a recurrence of the old threats. It has been said that in an era in which we need forces that can be deployed rapidly, we do not need heavy tanks. People have said "No one wants the Eurofighter any more, because it is surplus to requirements." We are going to have to prepare for a traditional, conventional war, such as we fought only three years ago. We must prepare to defend ourselves with the concepts and strategies that were used in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, while having to deal with terrorism at home and a multitude of other pressures that we are beginning to recognise. Can that be done with a defence budget that is falling to a level close to 2.2 or 2.3 per cent., perhaps even closer than we fear? It cannot.
	As everyone with a sense of history knows, after the Ottoman navy was largely sunk at Lepanto, the Ottomans licked their wounds, sailed home in what ships they had, chopped down every tree in Anatolia and built a new navy in six months, after which they were back winning naval victories. Our protracted procurement process may mean a delay of 10, 15 or 20 years. We must start to anticipate what the dangers may be in 10 or 15 years, or perhaps even sooner.
	Members may say "You have criticised the Government. Now may we have a little plug for the Government?" The hon. Member for Mid-Sussex rightly said that the strategic defence review was overdue and that its analysis was correct. Adjustments were made because of succeeding events, but one wonders how long it will be before more adjustments are needed. I am not calling for a new SDR, but five years from now we may be forced to admit that the strategic environment is different from the one that existed when the SDR was drawn up in the late 1990s.
	I do not wish to be seen as an old cold war warrior who, Rip van Winkle-like, has fallen asleep for a decade and then returned to the world as if nothing had happened. I genuinely believe that we are entering a dangerous period of international relations.
	I am very pro-America, and always have been. We should support the alliance, and support the United States even when things look pretty stupid over there. Anyone with a sense of history will know the importance of the United States to the security and survival of western Europe. Who was largely responsible for the delivery of eastern and central Europe? It was not the British or the French; it was the United States. Because of the deteriorating economic environment in the United States and the bruising that it, like the British, has received over Iraq, my concern is that the United States might do what it did after 1918-19: retreat into itself and say, "Well, it's your problem." It must not do that. However good our armed forces are, and even with Trident II or Trident III, could we survive? No, we could not. Can we rely on the European Union to defend us? No, we cannot.
	In the dangerous world in which we now live, there must be an increasingly close relationship between the traditional allies—not only between the English-speaking peoples, but right across the world. The economic, social and demographic threats that we face have to be dealt with, but the primary threat will be the multiplicity of threats that I have been talking about. We can cope with those threats only by means of a solid twin-tracked alliance in which the American part is matched—and not only in terms of the quality of armed forces. We have learned that defence is no longer a matter only for the Ministry of Defence.
	That brings me on to my main point. The debate is on defence, but the topic is in some respects anachronistic. Defence is a watertight area of Government policy. We know exactly what it is, who makes most of the decisions—the Chancellor—and who makes the decisions consequent upon his decisions. We know the personnel involved. However, 9/11 showed that each Department of State is not watertight. No solid wall can be built around the Foreign Office or the MOD. In fairness to the Executive, they have built up and developed a system of decision making that transcends departmental stovepipes. However, it is far from perfect, and I do not want there to be a crisis of decision making so that there needs to be an inquiry into that failure. I do not want the Government to have to rework constantly their decision-making and policy-making procedures to ensure that, in the event of a crisis—whether a minor crisis involving a relatively minor terrorist attack, or a major crisis—the entire series of edifices of central Government, Cabinet and Cabinet Committees, with the entire range of personnel involved, are so well calibrated in terms of both domestic politics and our relations with our international partners that our response is sufficiently swift and effective.
	My major concern is an institution that is closer to home: our House of Commons. The Executive have over time acted to create a more cross-cutting decision-making process, but parliamentary structures remain wedded to 19th-century principles. We even call Select Committees "departmental Select Committees". However, the Defence Committee, which I was proud to chair, broke the mould. After 9/11, a meeting was held—a couple of Members who are present attended it—of the Defence Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and the International Development Committee. It was a substitute for a second recall of Parliament after 9/11. I contacted the Chairmen of those Committees as well as the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which is not a Select Committee, of course, and said, "Look, we're all going to be involved in an inquiry into 9/11. Let's get the ground rules right so that we do not keep calling the same people." I asked the Defence Committee staff and others to list from one to 10 the best forms of inquiry. At the top of the list was a joint inquiry across the board: one large committee with inputs from the other Committees. At the bottom was the option of no co-operation whatsoever. What model of co-operation was chosen? The bottom but one, which was a joint briefing from the intelligence services. So the Defence Committee said, "Sod you—we are doing our own."
	A lot of people were angry. One Cabinet Minister was incandescent with rage because we, the Defence Committee, at the instigation of the MOD, were undertaking an inquiry way beyond our competence as a Select Committee. We did it, however, and we covered defence and, to an extent, foreign affairs, home affairs, civil contingencies preparation and response, aviation and maritime security, the response of the health service, regional and local government, policing, and the private sector in a genuinely integrated inquiry, carried out by the Defence Committee on its own. After that we had exhausted our good will with the other Committees, which had progressively joined in, so we sank back again into our stovepipe.
	I have done a lot of research on this issue. I wrote to the Leader of the House, who was not interested in my proposal. The Chairman of the Modernisation Committee was quite interested, but I got no reply from the Liaison Committee. I said, "Can we not think of ways of improving the situation and of getting out of our 'stovepipe-ism'? Can't we have national security committee, which could be ad hoc and would come into effect only if a crisis occurred that required the Select Committee system to get the Committees together in a combined endeavour to deal with it?"

Ann Winterton: It was a pleasure to be in the House this afternoon to hear the sterling contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames). I want to associate myself in particular with the remarks that he made at the beginning of his speech about our armed services and their families and about those who have fallen on behalf of this country.
	Those remarks prompted me to reflect that defence should be any Government's No. 1 priority, as it is our insurance policy that ensures that freedom and the right of self-determination continue in the UK. It was for that reason that the Falklands taskforce set out almost 25 years ago, as most of us will remember well. I am pleased and honoured to be going to the Falklands for the first time in June, to be present at the commemorations celebrating the return of freedom to the islands.
	I agree entirely with the right hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) about the alliances with America and the English-speaking countries that have stood the test of time. We should work more closely with those who share our ideals and values.
	I came across a quotation the other day that seemed especially apt for this debate on the UK's defence. In his "The Art of War", Sun Tzu wrote:
	"And as water has no constant form, there are in war no constant conditions."
	That succinctly describes the dilemma facing those charged with the procurement of arms, vehicles and systems for our armed services on active duty on behalf of the UK.
	In order to plan comprehensively for the defence of the UK, one has to predict future difficulties and conflicts that could threaten, directly or indirectly, our nation and its interests. It would seem that the present counter-insurgency challenges facing our troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan—part of the war on terrorism—have not been accurately predicted by the military or by politicians. The Home Secretary recently talked about splitting the responsibilities of the Home Office to improve prospects in the war on terror. Perhaps the MOD needs to give a higher priority to counter-insurgency work, and to the necessary procurement for it, because the war on terror will most certainly not go away.
	I am often reminded of the phrase "boys and toys" when I hear about the huge expenditure on procurement in the UK's defence budget, not least because I have always believed that it is not what we spend but how we spend it that is more important. For example, the RAF's budget is haemorrhaging because of the Eurofighter—that fantastically expensive creation of European integration—and if we enter into tranche 3, which will provide for ground attack, the aircraft will be too fast to be of any use as close air support in counter-insurgency work.
	Similarly, the Royal Navy is besotted with the idea of its two future aircraft carriers, which inevitably absorb most of its funding. However, should not we ask whether those vessels will fit the requirements of the future? They will certainly be of limited value in counter-insurgency work, where the requirement is often as simple as inshore patrol vessels. The Army has been painfully restructured to fulfil the original concept of FRES—the future rapid effect system—to wage war against a conventional army at a distance, as part of the European rapid reaction force, double-hatted with NATO; yet that unattainable pipe dream seems to have been downgraded to the provision of medium-armoured vehicles.
	The three examples I have briefly described, with the extra parts bolted on to form the complete packages, are very large funding projects indeed. During the Westminster Hall debate I secured on FRES, the Minister announced that its cost had risen, almost overnight, from £6 billion to £14 billion and I believe that it has now gone up to £16 billion in only a short time. Once again, the question has to be posed: can the UK afford such expensive procurement without compromising lesser but equally important projects with immediate needs, such as those to provide maximum protection and support for our troops on active service in Iraq and Afghanistan? The final question is the $64,000 one: will a future British Government be prepared to continue funding those expensive projects?
	The MOD is making great strides in base protection from indirect fire, which includes the introduction of counter rocket, artillery and mortar—C-RAM—about which I asked an oral question on 22 January, following a tragic incident at Basra palace camp. Improved body armour has been supplied. The VIPIR thermal imager is excellent. Mastiff and Bulldog vehicles have been introduced and there are improved electronic counter-measures against improvised explosive devices. As has been said, there are additional medium-lift helicopters: eight mark 3 Chinooks, which are to be downgraded to mark 2s, to ensure that they actually work, and six Merlins from Denmark, which are exceptionally expensive aircraft. In addition, among other items, we now have the underslung grenade launcher and better communication kit.
	Where we might be going wrong, however, is that the military, or perhaps even politicians, seem to want advanced technical toys that cover 100 per cent. of all possible requirements. I have already mentioned tranche 3 of the Eurofighter, but there is also the joint strike fighter, the Merlin helicopter and electric armour on new vehicles. Then, on cost only rather than technology grounds, there are the two carriers, Astute submarines, A400M transport aircraft, air-to-air refuelling replacement and the MARS—military afloat reach and sustainability—programme to replace all the Navy's ageing supply ships. They are all incredibly expensive, and often need massive logistical back-up, yet we simply do not have the manpower to service them without taking personnel from other duties. Nor could we contemplate their potential loss, because we have insufficient financial resources to replace them, even if they could be procured at short notice, which is nigh on impossible.
	Over the past three years, I have consistently pursued the issue of counter-insurgency, where the enemy is unknown and is indistinguishable from the local population. That was the main reason I was so sceptical about the original concept of FRES. It is essential for counter-insurgency work to have aerial surveillance, yet I am not entirely convinced of the reliability of unmanned aerial vehicles, which do not come cheap by any means, especially when the Iraqi air force has at least 12 SAMA CH2000 small aircraft fitted with XM15 electro-optical surveillance turrets for less than the price of one Lynx helicopter. However, the Minister will be relieved to hear that it is pleasing that the Army Air Corps now has four Britten Norman Defender 4S AL Mk1 aircraft, which I trust are still in Iraq. I recently tabled a written question on that point. They operate at a fraction of the hourly cost of other aircraft and are no doubt doing a superb job.
	With the correct surveillance equipment, an expensive platform is not necessary to deliver results. With the contraction of UK forces in Iraq to Basra air base, for example, the limited routes into Basra should be under aerial surveillance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as should those routes going south to protect the supply lines from Kuwait. That should not be too expensive, but I wonder if the Royal Air Force and the Army Air Corps would work together and co-operate on such a project.
	Moreover, insurgents are upping the ante, as it were, by taking out Warriors and Challengers, but it takes them considerably longer to lay the much larger charges needed than to lay an IED—improvised explosive device—against a Snatch Land Rover. That provides the golden opportunity, if there is adequate surveillance, to catch and deal with the insurgents.
	There should not be a shortage of helicopters, as there are plenty of Bell helicopters—commonly known in the American slang as "Hueys"—which can be leased at a 10th of the hourly cost of a Lynx. They can also operate well in the heat of Afghanistan and fly when conditions ground the Lynx.
	At present, many of the requirements in the field of defence arise from dealing with insurgents resisting democracy and the UK simply cannot afford to fight that kind of a war by using the most expensive equipment, which is not always the best for the conditions. We can succeed, however, by using practical, cost-effective means such as the electro-optical surveillance turret within a simple platform. We can build vehicles with a balance between protection, speed and manoeuvrability, although it has to be said that reports about the Panther Command and Liaison vehicle have not been all that encouraging. As it seems that many, if not most, future conflicts will have to deal with insurgency, Britain needs a force that is both equipped and trained for insurgency work, which can be achieved at a fraction of the defence budget.
	I end my brief contribution by saying that I believe the Secretary of State acted properly and appropriately in announcing an inquiry into the incident involving the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines on 23 March. I trust that the inquiry will have a beneficial long-term effect on counter-insurgency work and that the UK will be better equipped in future to deal with these extremely difficult situations.

Harry Cohen: Before I start my own speech, I would like to comment on what the shadow Secretary of State for Defence said earlier this afternoon, which I can describe only as barmy paranoia. His basic argument was that we should not trade with Russia or Iran because they will invest some of the proceeds in their defence. That is quite silly. Are we not to trade, then, to receive the pretty large portions of the world's oil and gas that come from those parts of the world? Are our people supposed to go cold instead? In another part of the hon. Gentleman's speech, he talked about selling arms without restriction because he wanted to boost our defence industries. That aspect of his speech was silly and incoherent. He should revisit the matter for the future.
	The debate is about defence in the UK, so it is quite restrictive. However, it is astonishing that we have not had a full debate on Iraq in the light of recent events and reports, which have included an escalation in the killing of civilians and troops. Iraqi citizens have less security and protection than ever, as was witnessed when the Parliament was bombed. More than 100,000 Iraqis participated in a demonstration in Najaf to call for the US and UK occupiers to go. The coalition Government are losing Ministers and there is more puppet government by the US than ever. We have also seen reports such as that by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which presented a scathing catalogue of the consequences of the occupation for soldiers and Iraqi civilians.
	In the United States, public opinion has moved overwhelmingly against the Iraq engagement. There is a joke in Washington: "What's the difference between the Iraq war and the Vietnam war?" The answer is, "George W. Bush had an exit strategy for the Vietnam war." George Bush is going to continue with the disaster until his term in office is up, whatever the fruitless cost in extra lives. His actions are taking the lives of British troops, yet that seems to be of little concern, other than for prayer. It is openly said in Washington that the Iraq war is a failed war. The US Congress knows it, the British public know it, and Ministers know it—and say so privately. It is wrong not to act on that knowledge so that the carnage and loss of life that the occupation is generating can be brought to an end.
	As the debate is about defence in the UK, I want to focus my speech on the UK defence institutions that have come under pressure from the war and occupation and to talk about the process in this country for dealing with death, torture and murder in British military custody. I will not mention a current case because aspects of it remain sub judice, but I can refer to more general matters.
	Such matters were raised in an article in Monday's edition of  The Guardian by the solicitor, Phil Shiner, who wrote:
	"The evidence of British abuse and killing of Iraqi civilians is part of an iceberg of disgrace which demands a public inquiry".
	He wrote that the nation should be "shocked", but that media outlets chose to ignore the matter. He stated:
	"By comparison, when Canadian troops meted out similar treatment to a prisoner in Somalia in the 1990s, the result was a five-year public inquiry and spring-clean of the military justice system."
	The article pointed out that the torture by British troops
	"included the use of four techniques banned by the government in 1972: hooding, stressing and sleep and food deprivation."
	It stated that the torture was carried out by
	"not just one rogue battalion",
	but others. Phil Shiner referred to
	"senior brigade legal advice, which said it would not be breaching international humanitarian law to hood and stress civilian detainees."
	He wrote about a
	"failure to train troops to observe the law and also, it seems, to teach them the basic principles to enable them to fulfil their role."
	In that context, he wrote that troops had "precisely 1.25 hours training" in prisoner handling, although that was the main job of some of the troops. The article also cited "military operations" with
	"racist connotations from an earlier era",
	and stated:
	"Uncomfortable questions about our complicity in war crimes with the US also lurk beneath the surface."
	He talks about the need for a public inquiry. The Government need to respond to those issues; otherwise they will be discredited.
	That has implications for our defence institutions, such as the Royal Military Police. I have a lot of time for them and I pay tribute to them. They have an incredibly difficult job, but they are understaffed and undermined. They investigate thoroughly and deliver the evidence but are then undermined by the rest of the process. They really should be demoralised, and I suspect that they are, because they are given very little support, even by the Government. They are let down by the Army Prosecuting Authority. Their status is too low, and for troops who are prepared to use abusive tactics they are really little more now than a nuisance, when they should be a proper police authority.
	The Army Prosecuting Authority was the subject of a parliamentary question that I asked in January. It dropped a case of assault because it was more than six months old, saying that it was time-barred. I found that an incredible decision for any prosecuting authority to make. I cannot imagine that if somebody who commits an assault is not caught for six months they will not be prosecuted. The APA put out a press release referring to the incident in 2004 in al-Amarah, which was, of course, shown on television in February 2006. It involved British soldiers allegedly assaulting Iraqi civilians. The video commentary appeared to encourage what was being done and the footage showed an alleged kick to the body of a deceased Iraqi civilian.
	The APA said that following a thorough investigation by the Royal Military Police, nine servicemen, members of the Light Infantry, had been referred to it, but it had decided that they should not be tried by court martial. Its reasons involved tests of evidential sufficiency and what it called "public interest". It claimed that it was not in the public interest to prosecute, even though it had established the identity of two of the servicemen. It said:
	"Charges of battery are, however, summary only offences in civilian law and are currently subject to a 6 month time-limit. This would also apply in proceedings in a civilian court."
	The charges were therefore time-barred. It went on to say:
	"The military authorities were not aware of the incident until February 2006",
	even though it took place in 2004.
	That is a ridiculous position. Is assault and battery a summary offence in the civilian world? It is not; it is a most serious offence, and it would be treated as such under criminal law. Is the APA really saying that in civilian society someone can beat up another person and it they are not caught for six months they are in the clear and cannot be prosecuted? I do not think so. By saying that the APA shows how biased it is and what a poor position it is in on this matter. It claims to be acting in the public interest, but it is really just what is wanted by the ill-informed press who see these military abusers as a special case. This is their definition of public interest; it is not what the armed forces need and it is not what the UK needs to uphold its reputation for justice and human rights. On the public interest, the APA got it wrong in this case and it repeatedly gets it wrong. Where is the analysis and the transparency in such cases, which are in the public interest? The APA claims to be independent, but that alleged independence is a chimera. That is what I believe, and that is what the world will believe. If it was independent of the armed forces, it could be safely abolished, and its role handed over to the Crown Prosecution Service.
	The court martial system is not working properly in the Iraq abusers context. It sets up all sorts of mechanisms for delay, and, as we know from the APA's reinterpretation of the law as regards the six-month time limit, the guilty can get off simply because of the delay. The court martial system is not to be trusted; it is time for it to be abolished, and for the criminal court system to apply instead. I conclude by quoting from this week's  Tribune:
	"A military court has thus far refused to convict on charges of manslaughter, discharging all but the one case involving a voluntary admission. It is misguided to see this result as 'protecting our troops'. The reverse is true. Without an independent investigation there is a danger that the British military will attract a reputation for unpunished brutality within a system which protects the brutalisers...It is not about witch-hunting, nor about holding the military to higher standards than they should be subject to anywhere. It is about accountability, the universal defence of fundamental human rights and the pursuit of justice."
	The way in which people have been dealt with in UK military custody is a disgrace and a shame on Britain, in human rights terms.

Mike Hancock: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish that some of the Members who spoke earlier had borne that advice in mind, particularly as those of us waiting to speak have been here since the beginning of the debate. Some of them had not been in the Chamber for very long at all, yet they managed to catch the eye of the occupant of the Chair. It is a shame that they did not show the rest of us the courtesy that we showed them.
	I join the Minister in what he had to say about the fallen soldiers—the personnel whom we have lost in the past sad month, and all the others who have gone, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many Members have talked about the Falklands today, and my family and I have sad memories of that conflict. My cousin lies in a grave in the Falklands, and my brother-in-law has never really got over the effects of having the ship on which he served bombed out from under him, so, as a family, we know of the historical consequences of those actions. It is fortuitous that we are talking about the defence of the United Kingdom today, with the Falklands anniversary so close; the events took place just 25 years ago.
	My mind goes back to the situation in Portsmouth naval base 25 years ago. It was one of desperation, of job cuts, of Navy reductions, and of ships being laid up and scrapped. The perpetrator of those problems, the then Secretary of State, John Nott, was infamous in Portsmouth for what he had done, because a matter of months after the cuts started to be implemented, the work force were brought back, as were the ships, many of which were on their way out of service. They were reconditioned very quickly and brought back into service. It is a great tribute both to service personnel and to the work force in naval bases throughout the country that we were able to achieve what we did in the Falklands. It was through the dedication of the civilian personnel who put so much effort into the work, many of whom sailed on the ships, and left them at various points on the way down to the south Atlantic, that we were able to achieve the success that we did.
	It is a tribute to all of our armed forces that so many Members have spoken in this debate with great eloquence and authority about the commitment that the members of the armed forces show all the time. The nation appreciates their work, dedication and commitment, and the way in which they carry out their duties, and nobody should take that away from them. I have yet to meet anyone who has been to Afghanistan, Iraq, or anywhere else where our armed forces work who says that there is a morale problem. There manifestly is not. When our armed forces are on active service, wherever they are, morale is not the issue. There is disappointment sometimes that equipment is late, or that other units receive equipment that they need before them, and so on, but those things are normal. No one should ever try to diminish the true fighting spirit of those men and women, and say that there is a morale problem among the country's fighting forces.
	I should like to speak, as the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry) did, briefly about the naval base and the consequences of any proposed changes. I do not want to go over issues that have already been raised, but the future of the Royal Navy is irreversibly linked to the future of Portsmouth as the home of the Royal Navy. In an announcement this week, the First Sea Lord said how important Portsmouth was as the future home of the carriers. That led people to believe that by the end of this week—perhaps even today—the Minister might announce the signing of the contracts for the carriers. We lived in hope. Our local newspaper optimistically believed that it was about to happen, and that the signal for that was the statement by the First Sea Lord. We were glad, however, that the Navy's serving sailors were determined that Portsmouth should be retained as a naval base.
	There are other issues, however, affecting the Navy. Hon. Members have discussed the future of training, and in an intervention, the Minister discussed what is going to happen at St. Athan, which will have repercussions on the demise of HMS Collingwood, HMS Salton and Whale Island and affect the Greater Portsmouth area. Four constituencies—Portsmouth, North; Portsmouth, South; Gosport; and Fareham—will be dramatically affected by those repercussions. We still have not had any indication at all, however, about what will happen to those large pieces of real estate or to the enormous number of civilian staff who work at those bases, many of whom cannot move several hundred miles to St. Athan. We are entitled to ask whether we will have answers to those questions, and whether we will have them in time for people to reorganise their lives. Many people who can move have young children, and if we care about our armed forces personnel and the civilians who support them, we must give them credit they deserve, and provide them with straight answers to those questions. Hence the fact that there is still frustration in the naval base, as the final decision seems to be further and further from being taken. In all honesty, the loyalty and dedication of those people are worthy of a straight answer as soon as possible.
	Many Members have discussed married quarters. Despite the best efforts of the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), who made that decision—he suggested that it was one of his last decisions as the then Armed Forces Minister to sell off those houses—if we had the money that Annington has made on the sale of the land and property that it acquired from us, as my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) said, at rip-off prices, we would be able improve 25 per cent. more of the service accommodation than we have been able to improve so far. That is the proportion of profit and gain that Annington has made at the taxpayer's expense.
	There are still many years to go before we catch up, and we must recognise that the state of our married quarters has been a disgrace. I am delighted that a great deal has happened, and I have to say that over the past five years, there has been an enormous improvement. One need only go into the single service accommodation in Portsmouth to see the amazing transformation from the ghastly mess in which young service personnel were forced to live to accommodation that is much better both in quality and the way in which it is serviced. We must recognise that transformation. I was delighted that, in response to my intervention, the Minister of State recognised that there is a need to train the trainers, and make sure that the duty of care to the young men and women who join our armed forces is addressed properly by the people who carry out those exercises. Of all the things that dismayed me in those very difficult meetings with the parents of the young people who died at Deepcut and of others who died around the country, I was most dismayed by the criticism of the trainers and the way in which that they took it upon themselves to dish out abuse in one form or another—not all them, by any means, but many of them did so.
	One of the criticisms that came from the Army itself was about the calibre of those trainers and the lack of training of the trainers. That goes back to the people in the recruiting offices. Once again, to his credit, the Minister of State recognised that and said that the way in which we draw people into the armed forces and take them on at the initial stage will be open to greater scrutiny.
	I am full of admiration for the way in which our armed forces have turned around young men and women who had hopeless lives ahead of them. Given the opportunity of joining our armed forces, they have been transformed not only into first class citizens, but into first class service personnel. The best education they ever got, they tell me when I meet them, was the one they got when they joined one of our armed forces. I am proud of that. Sadly, though, some still get into our armed forces who should never have been allowed to join. That is not a criticism of them—it is a criticism of the system that did not check thoroughly enough the medical background or the suitability of some young men and women to join our armed forces. I am delighted that more care and attention will be paid to that. I welcome the Minister's remarks on the matter this afternoon.
	On retention, we have learned many lessons over the past 10 years. We have learned that certain categories of staff, such as fast jet pilots, skilled divers in the Navy and aircraft fitters in the Air Force, have skills that are readily marketable out there in civilian life and that we must prepare packages to retain them. As the Minister has said on more than one occasion, we must make the right judgments. It is not just about getting the pay scales right. We must offer breaks in service to members of our armed forces who can easily market their skills elsewhere. After the country has invested so much money in them, I want us to retain those people. I am sure we are developing the necessary techniques.
	Several speakers have mentioned veterans. Let us consider the plight of the Gurkhas. A few years from now, they will celebrate 200 years of service to this country, yet 22,000 Gurkhas who retired before 1997 receive inadequate pensions and have no right to settle in the UK. Whenever the subject of the treatment of the Gurkhas and their pensions is raised, there is universal support for them. As a Parliament and a nation, we should not deny them what most people believe they are morally entitled to, which is no more and no less than any of us would expect.
	I hope the debate today has demonstrated to Ministers and the Ministry of Defence that there is not one parliamentarian who does not hold the armed forces in high esteem. All of us believe that they do a first class job and that they need the appropriate service, such as equipment, back-up in civilian life and support for their families. The duty of care extends from the time they join to way after they leave. Many Members have spoken about the difficulties that service personnel experience when they leave. Some have housing problems, others have health problems, and some end up in prison.
	One thing surprises me time and again when I meet young men and women who have returned from active service. They have been in situations that they may never have expected to encounter, when they were close to or involved in the killing of other human beings in a war situation. Some do not express their fears and concerns when they are with their unit or when they are with their families, but they express them to their friends. Very few are equipped to deal with that. Sadly, local GPs cannot deal with it. Some former members of the armed forces find it extremely difficult to come to terms with what they have experienced over those months and, in some cases because of more than one tour, years on active service, when they have seen things that none of us would wish on them. We must find a way of giving those young men and women support before they go, to give them a better understanding of what to expect and the traumas they might experience, and after they come back.
	With all that said, I have nothing but admiration for the way in which the armed forces Minister robustly presented his case. Above all else, both sides appreciate the fact that he has never shirked his share of responsibility, and I do not think that the House should either. We should ensure that we resource our armed forces fairly and properly.

James Gray: I shall be brief because I know that two of my hon. Friends are keen to speak before the winding-up speeches.
	It has been a wide-ranging and well informed debate. When one thinks of these debates, one thinks slightly of groundhog day, of a fly buzzing quietly in the corner and the same old defence people turning up and saying the same things. Today has been a remarkably well informed and interesting debate, involving a variety of people who have tested one particular thesis. The thesis is that there is some kind of contract or covenant between the nation and our armed services. In each of our different ways, we have tried in the debate to assess the degree to which the covenant between the Government or the nation has been fulfilled on our side. As Lieutenant-General Freddie Viggers has said the issue is about
	"giving our soldiers and their families what they deserve in return what they do for us."
	After all, all of us in the House must acknowledge that what they do for us is not something that we could possibly contemplate doing, or at least not at our advanced stage in life.
	The covenant between the nation and the armed services seems to be multi-faceted. It covers the whole question of resources in general. I wish that I could stand here and say that I was confident that an incoming Conservative Government would give the resources that I would like them to give to the armed services, but the issue involves the resources that Governments of any complexion give to the armed services.
	Part of that involves manpower. Is it right that we have an Army of about 100,000 people, the smallest since Waterloo? Can a tiny Army of that kind do the things that the Prime Minister and the Government are asking it to do? Can we live with 18 ships in the Royal Navy doing the work of at least 30? Can we live with the deep cuts that have been made to the Royal Air Force? I speak with feeling on that latter issue, because of the upcoming closure of the base at RAF Lyneham in my constituency.
	Can we do what we are supposed to be doing given the inadequacies of the equipment? We have heard about the tragedies of the deaths of servicemen because they did not have body armour or had the wrong kind of body armour or other equipment.
	Can we really ask our people to go to Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere and do awful tasks under difficult circumstances if they know that 46 per cent. of their families are at home living in substandard accommodation? I acknowledge the fact that a lot of money has been spent recently on improving housing, and I welcome that very much. However, some 46,000 armed service homes are still substandard. That will not do.
	If we ask our boys on the front line what concerns them, they do not talk about the fact that there are not enough of them or that they have not got the right equipment. As someone has just said, by and large, their morale is extremely high. The thing that they talk to us about is what is happening at home. They are deeply concerned by the fact that their families live in conditions that they would not have to live in if they were in civilian life.
	People often come to my surgery in Chippenham and they might say, "I'm a mechanic in the Royal Army Service Corps and I'm getting £14,000 a year. I'm sent abroad for six or eight months of the year and my wife lives in terrible conditions at home. If I left the Army and became a mechanic in Chippenham, I would get £25,000 or £30,000 a year and I'd be at home all the year round. Why shouldn't I do that?" That is a very difficult question to answer.
	Why should a fully trained private soldier in the British Army get something like £14,000 or £15,000 a year? A fully trained nurse gets about £18,000 a year and a fully trained police constable gets something of the order of £24,000 a year. Are we as a nation fulfilling our side of the covenant by putting people up in poor accommodation and paying them badly? I suspect that we are not.
	I shall touch on a few other points very briefly. Spending of 2.2 per cent. of GDP is the lowest since 1930. An Army of 100,000 is the smallest since Waterloo, and the Territorial Army is the smallest it has been since it was founded in 1906, but it is being asked to do so much more than it ever has been. As General Sir Michael Rose said:
	"In the past six years, the Prime Minister has presided over near-catastrophic decline in defence spending which has put our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan at considerable and quite unnecessary risk."
	Admiral Sir Alan West said:
	"The resources...don't allow us to do the things we need to do. Over time, we don't have the forces available should there suddenly be a strategic shock...like the Falklands"—
	to which several hon. Members have referred so passionately today. We simply do not have the resources required to do those jobs; we are breaching the resources covenant as we are breaching the housing and welfare covenant. We are not doing all the things that we should be doing for our people. I am not blaming the Government, or saying that if we were in government it would necessarily be different. We as a nation are not fulfilling the covenant, and it is vital that we should find ways of doing precisely that.
	No hon. Gentleman or hon. Lady in the House today would foresee any diminution in the amount that we do in the years to come. It is likely that we will ask our services to carry out more and more operations, perhaps in different parts of the world, in increasingly difficult circumstances. If so, I ask the Minister to take away from the debate this message, if no other. For goodness' sake, please try to remember the important covenant between us as a nation and our armed services. Give the services what they need to do the job and give the families at home what they need to be proud of their men and women out in the front doing the work that they have to do.

Robert Syms: I do not usually contribute to defence debates, and I have learned an awful lot by listening to the debate today. One must certainly be a little careful with so many experts in the Chamber.
	The fact that the military footprint in society is smaller than it has ever been is a sign of the success of the post-war settlement, of NATO, and of our friends, the United States. It is probably a good thing. I am a little wary of simply talking about percentages of gross domestic product. The true power of the United States is based on the fact that it has a very large and successful economy. Ultimately, whether we can project British power, and provide the necessary tools and equipment and pay our servicemen, depends on the success of the British economy; that must be a key issue.
	I decided to contribute briefly to the debate having been out canvassing in Hamworthy in Poole last week, when I had a few discussions with the Royal Marines who are based there. We are immensely proud of Royal Marines Hamworthy. It is the home of the Special Boat Squadron and other special units who have made a great contribution to the defence of our country and to the war on terror. For the third time in the 10 years for which I have been an MP, the base is being reviewed. Fortunately, at the end of these reviews there is usually more investment, and even if forces are moved out other units are moved in. We in Poole hope that it will remain a base and that the important contribution that the Royal Marines make to the local community will continue, for all the reasons that we heard from other Members who spoke about their local bases. People become settled in communities, their spouses get jobs, and they wish to remain. As it happens, Poole is a nice place to live and to bring up one's children.
	I want to talk principally about the concerns about medical services that several Royal Marines raised on the doorstep. Clearly, someone who is going to go in to an area of danger hopes to have the best possible support if they get wounded or injured. There are general concerns about medical support—we have debated them in this House—but two or three Marines put to me their specific concerns about mental health services. My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) said that about 12 per cent. of Iraq veterans have psychological problems. Nowadays, there is greater understanding of the psychological difficulties that troops encounter when they come back to this country. The Marines told me that they did not feel that they were getting support in this area. They recounted several stories about colleagues who had done very valuable jobs. I heard about the case of somebody who directed artillery and saved many lives as a result, but on one occasion, because of false intelligence, had directed it on to some civilians and children. He suffered psychological problems. When he returned to the UK, he was not met at the airport and had to take a taxi. He had been through a catalogue of difficulties and then a prolonged period of home leave. It is important to get things right.
	Earlier, we heard that the Government had put £4 million into a contract with the Priory. The local Marines asked whether that was the most appropriate action to take. The Priory is good at alcohol addiction, bulimia and so on, but I question whether it is the most appropriate place for the special problems of those who have been traumatised in battle. I am not an expert on the matter but I hope that Ministers will reflect on whether we are giving adequate support to those who experience trauma.
	Another matter that local families who have sadly lost relatives raised with me is the length of time for the inquests of those who are flown back. I appreciate that the subject is complex and difficult and I have raised it with the Secretary of State in the past. I know that bringing the bodies to Brize Norton so that the Oxfordshire coroner dealt with them created a backlog and that, once an inquest is opened, it cannot be moved, even if it is immediately adjourned. I welcome the fact that some of the bodies are being brought back through Lyneham, where the Wiltshire coroner can deal with the inquests.
	The point that was made earlier about resources is important. I hope that the Minister will take the matter up with the Department for Constitutional Affairs and ascertain whether more resources can be provided. The families have not only suffered the shock of losing a relative but they sometimes have to wait for two or three years for an inquest before they can get on with their lives and put things behind them.

Julian Lewis: I sympathise with you, Madam Deputy Speaker, in your endeavours to restrict contributions to relevance to defence in the UK, just as I sympathise with hon. Members on both sides of the House who have passionate views about defence issues that perhaps go wider than the debate title. Throughout the debate, various degrees of latitude have been afforded to different speakers. In responding to some of the speeches we have heard, I hope that I shall receive a similar degree of consideration.
	For once, I hope to talk about some topics that have not been mentioned much. I intend to divide my remarks into the general categories of plots, leaks, morale and methods. Before getting on to that agenda, I shall refer to some of the contributions made.
	On the whole, welfare issues have been predominant, particularly in the speeches of the hon. Members for Colchester (Bob Russell), for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) and for North Durham (Mr. Jones) and of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray). Like the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock), my hon. Friend laid great stress on the inadequacy of resources with which Defence Ministers of any party must contend when fighting their lonely battles against the Treasury in order to enable our armed forces to fight their rather more dangerous battles against the enemy. My heart goes out to Ministers, because I know they do their best in that respect. That is probably the nicest thing that I will say about them this evening, so they had better make the most of it.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) focused challengingly, as always, on major procurement projects and the assumptions that underlie them. The hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry) made an excellent speech featuring a typically robust defence of her local naval base. I think that she is fundamentally right to focus on the strategic implications of reducing our dependence to a single naval base, although we may part company when I point out that the reason it is possible to consider reducing the number of naval bases from three to two is the slashing and burning of front-line units of the Royal Navy. If that reduction takes place, it will become all the harder to reverse cuts that go far beyond what was outlined in the 1998 strategic defence review should circumstances reach such a degree of danger and necessity that even the Treasury sees the need for reversal of those losses.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) stoutly defended the role of the Royal Marines base in his constituency, and also spoke of the need to provide support for people with mental health problems after the experience of combat. I believe that such support is particularly important for reservists who, on returning to their civilian occupations from serious war-fighting on operations, no longer benefit from the support and environment of their regular units and comrades. That must add considerably to the pressure of coming to terms with what they have seen and undergone. My hon. Friend also spoke of the ordeal of families awaiting inquests, and I was reassured by the Minister of State's reply.
	As a seasoned parliamentary operator, the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen) was able to get in his remarks about Iraq before disarming the Chair by saying, "But of course the debate is about defence in the UK", and devoting the rest of his speech to courts martial. As I have said from the Dispatch Box before, it is worth considering a change in the way in which the subject matter of defence debates is allocated. There is a good deal to be said for debates that focus on individual services, in which it is possible to cover not only the whole ground over the year, but everything from welfare to war fighting in the context of a single debate. That would avoid the difficulties encountered by the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway) in trying to raise subjects that are outwith the strict terminology of the Order Paper.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, broadened the debate slightly when he said that following his visit to Afghanistan he was concerned about the strategy of the Government—back in the UK, I hasten to add—for the waging of the war there in connection with the poppy crops. He thought there might be a degree of confusion on our side. I agree with that, but there is certainly no degree of confusion on the side of our opponents. In an interview reported in  The Daily Telegraph on 9 February, a Taliban commander is quoted as saying
	"We are obeying the orders of our leaders who have told us to defend the farmers... The Taliban will support the local people, because the people's support will make it impossible for the government and foreign forces to defeat us."
	That shows that the Taliban at least understand the basic principle of counter-insurgency—that its aim should be to divide the insurgents from the mass of the people, while the aim of the insurgents should be to remain united with the mass of the people. I think that somebody somewhere in the Ministry of Defence does not understand that—or, more probably, that somebody somewhere in the Government is not prepared to stand up to our American allies and emphasise this point. It is immoral that we should have troops fighting and dying in pursuit of a strategy that drives our opponents' cause forward by enabling and encouraging people to sign up to their ranks.
	However, I must not wander from the topic of defence in the United Kingdom, so let me briefly refer to a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), a former MOD Minister, made in his outstanding and riveting speech, and which was also mentioned by the right hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George). They referred to the inevitability of unpredictable crises arising and the difficulties involved in persuading Governments that they must find the resources to deal with them and subscribe to the flexible doctrines that will enable our forces to fight effectively in those circumstances. The idea that the chiefs of staff and their military advice are being cut out of the policy-making process, as my hon. Friend said, is particularly disturbing.
	I shall now turn to my own perspective on this topic. We know only too well the price that has had to be paid for allowing Islamist militants to plot in London throughout the 1990s. It is important that we never again make the mistake of tolerating the activities of the intolerant in our midst in any other context. In that connection, I have no hesitation in saying that it is totally unacceptable for an exiled Russian oligarch such as Boris Berezovsky who has been granted the privilege of residence in this country, to announce that he will abuse that privilege by fomenting revolution by force in his homeland. It is equally unacceptable that somebody such as Alexander Litvinenko can be assassinated, almost certainly by agents of the Russian state, within our borders.
	It is worth remembering that in July 2006 the Russian Parliament, the Duma, approved a law permitting the FSB—the Russian state security services—to hunt down and kill terrorists or "enemies of the state" anywhere in the world. That Bill was passed shortly after the abduction and murder of five Russian diplomats in Iraq in 2006, but critics of the Kremlin fear that the Russian security services now enjoy effective immunity should they assassinate Russians who live abroad and who are perceived to be opponents of the state. It is worth remembering that next year the statute of limitations will come into force on the murder in 1978 of Georgi Markov, who was killed in London in similar circumstances, given the technologies of the day, to those of Litvinenko's murder. Given the huge changes that have taken place and the fact that a suspected assassin has been identified and interviewed, it is not satisfactory that the investigation has progressed at a snail's pace for so long and that it might soon might run out of time
	On leaks, it is particularly worrying that the deputy assistant commissioner in charge of anti-terrorist measures has felt it necessary to speak out as he did. Two former chairmen of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Sir Paul Lever and Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, have both stated their belief that the situation is serious. The finger of suspicion points to what Sir Paul Lever calls
	"the army of media advisers and spin doctors".
	They believe that there should be a proper investigation and a proper leak inquiry. I am at a loss to know, although I can suspect, why there were no fewer than two separate leak inquiries into the events surrounding the embarrassing leak of the e-mails that disclosed Jo Moore's wish to "bury bad news", and why there is no prospect of a—

Julian Lewis: I certainly am, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I think it essential that the defence of the United Kingdom depend on communities' trust in the police and in the police's ability to conduct anti-terrorist operations in this country without people being put at risk if they assist the authorities by being exposed in the media. I will move on now, but it is a matter of extreme concern that we are not fighting and winning the battle against terrorism, which, after all, is at the heart of the defence of the United Kingdom.
	As part of the Prime Minister's legacy, the Government recently published a policy review entitled "Building on progress: Britain in the World". It does contain one feature relating to the defence of the UK of which I thoroughly approve; I wish only that it had been formulated earlier. We read the following on page 30 of this 32-page document:
	"As agreed by the Ad Hoc Group on Terrorism, a new cross-government research, information and communications unit is being created to generate the policy analysis and material needed to...counter Al Qaeda ideology and the use of other forms of extremist propaganda by hostile regimes."
	I hope that the unit's work will not be confined to hostile regimes. We hear time and again that we are engaged in a war of ideas, and such a war can be won only by a proper counter-propaganda strategy. We were good at that during the cold war and the second world war, but it is true to say that we have not even begun to fight that type of war properly, some six years after 11 September. This is a very late development, albeit a welcome one.
	In the time that remains, I refer finally to methods of maintaining morale in the armed forces. One method is to show a degree of competence in handling the armed forces when they get into difficulties. I find it absolutely astonishing that when the decision was taken to allow Royal Navy personnel to sell their stories to the media, the effect was not considered on morale—on the morale of people whose children had come home in coffins; on the morale of people who had limbs blown off while serving in theatres of war overseas; or on the morale of servicemen and women who might find themselves in extremely dangerous situations and who might have to weigh up the alternatives of fighting to the last bullet or surrendering and selling their stories when eventually they were repatriated.
	In terms of the propaganda war to which I referred, did no one consider how it would serve the Iranians' purpose to be able to say that the people who were selling their stories were exaggerating in order to justify the money they were being paid? It is no good having leaks and spin doctors. What is needed is a concerted strategy, properly organised by a counterpart to the political warfare executive or the information research department, if one likes, or the London controlling section that managed to carry out deception strategies, if that is what we are trying to do where our enemies are concerned.
	Such a strategy has to be organised properly. Splitting the Home Office down the middle makes it hard to see how a cross-Department approach will work. What we actually need is departmental co-ordination and we are not getting that yet. I can only hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that in future the defence of the UK against an ideological terrorist threat will be far more systematically organised than it has been in the past.

Derek Twigg: This has been a wide-ranging and considered debate, with a surprising amount of consensus on some issues. Hon. Members recognised that we are doing a tremendous amount for our armed forces, but of course there is an argument about how much more we can do. We heard some interesting speeches and what came over clearly was the admiration that this House has for our armed forces and the work that they do in difficult circumstances. Of course, all our thoughts are with the families of those who have lost their lives and with those who have been injured or seriously wounded.
	It is a great privilege and honour to do my job and to work with the armed forces. I hold them in great esteem—even more so after doing this job for a while. Those who have visited Afghanistan and Iraq—as I did a few weeks ago—will have seen the courage, determination and sacrifices involved in that work. That is why our armed forces are the best in the world, and there is certainly consensus about that and the support that we want to give them.
	Much of the debate has centred on personnel and welfare issues, so I shall spend most of my time on those issues. The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) raised some specific issues to which I shall return, but he also referred to improvements in equipment and accommodation. He especially mentioned the fact that the improved medical treatment in the field hospitals has saved more lives and lessened the effects of injuries, compared to the effects that they would have had a few years ago. I welcome the hon. Gentleman's recognition of that.
	I think that I heard the hon. Gentleman right when he said that the Conservative party now thinks that the debate about military hospitals has passed and the issue now is whether we should have specific military wards. That is an important step towards consensus and to making progress on the issue. All the medical opinion in the armed forces is clear that military hospitals are not the way to go. Instead, we will provide the best possible treatment for our wounded servicemen and women by working with large hospital trusts, such as Selly Oak.
	We are seeing fantastic results at Selly Oak and I pay tribute to the work of the military and civilian clinicians and nursing staff in saving lives and treating and curing our injured service personnel. We also appreciate the support for families that is provided. It is important that we pay tribute to that work, not least because of some of the publicity it has had. There are treatment issues, and if things go wrong they will be fully investigated and dealt with. However, from my regular visits to Selly Oak, where I talk to the service personnel and their families, the quality of treatment and care is clear and we will continue to improve that.
	We have now moved to an initial operating capability for the military-managed ward and work is about to commence on ensuring that we have a partition to define that area even more clearly. When I answered a question previously in the House, I made it clear that the development of the new hospital in Birmingham to replace the current buildings at Selly Oak will give us a greater opportunity to improve the operation of the military-only ward. For the record, we are considering a military ward as part of the new hospital building, but a business case will have to be made for that—as hon. Members would expect—and of course we will also take account of clinical opinion. I am examining that at the moment, as part of my role as Minister with responsibility for the armed forces health services. We will continue to improve the treatment, care and welfare support that the whole House wants us to make available for injured service personnel and their families.
	The hon. Member for Woodspring asked a number of questions, one of which was about traumatic brain injury. I am sure that he will be aware that the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory is conducting research into that, with a view to informing injury management and body armour protection. Our analysis has examined patterns of brain injury in the context of helmet design and the protection that is offered, and there has also been close liaison with the Oxford coroner so that lessons can be learned from those casualties who do not survive their injuries.
	Traumatic brain injury patients are transferred to Birmingham, as the hon. Member for Woodspring knows. They are looked after at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court, which provides comprehensive management of neurological injuries. Like the US, we deploy computer tomography to operational theatres, and the use of telemedicine means that scans are reported to military radiologists in the UK within an hour. That system is already fully operational in Iraq, and it will soon be operational in Afghanistan.
	The hon. Member for Woodspring asked about the research into traumatic brain injury that is going on in the US. I can tell him that we are aware of that research, and that we are engaged in it through our medical liaison officer there. I hope that that gives him some reassurance.
	The hon. Member for Woodspring also asked about the care of armed forces personnel with mental health problems. Tremendous improvements have been made in the advice and support offered to service personnel, both before and after deployment. In addition, much more extensive information is given to families about the possible effects of serving in an operational theatre. We acknowledge that support for personnel who suffer mental health problems while on operation is also important, and we have made sure that it is provided.
	As I have set out on previous occasions, a scheme for reservists who return to their homes is now up and running, providing support for those who need it. We have also put in place appropriate care pathways for people who leave the service because of a mental illness. In addition, support is available for people who develop mental health problems some time after leaving the armed forces, and we are working with the health authorities and Combat Stress to set up a scheme to raise awareness and improve the treatment available on the NHS. Negotiations are at an advanced stage, and the first pilot should be up and running in the next few months.
	The Department is working closely with Combat Stress in negotiations over that organisation's budget, which at present stands at £2.8 million. We are also looking at other ways to improve the support for people who are suffering from a mental illness as a result of their service in the armed forces. We have an excellent resettlement package—which is being looked at by many other countries—that offers help with housing, training and employment for people who leave the forces.
	The Department has also set up various schemes and initiatives to help service personnel who end up homeless. I have visited the excellent Compass scheme, which does so much excellent work to get people in that situation back into housing, but there is more to be done. For example, we must ensure that people who leave the service have better pathways in respect of health and housing. The MOD and the services themselves, as well as the service organisations, regimental associations and service charities all have a part to play.
	The hon. Member for Woodspring spoke about the problems arising with primary care trust waiting lists when service personnel and their families move home. I can tell him that transfers between PCTs in England and Northern Ireland are arranged so that people retain their position in the waiting list, and that negotiations are under way about the cross-border issues connected with that policy.
	Many Members mentioned accommodation for service personnel, and the House will recognise that such housing has been underfunded for many years. We accept that some of the accommodation is not good enough for our service personnel, and we are spending significant sums. Last year, more than £700 million was allocated to improve both service family and single living accommodation. Members referred to the excellent examples of such accommodation around the country. Although £5 billion has been allocated over the next 10 years, there is more to do. It is important that we obtain best value for that money, with as many improvements as possible.
	The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) referred to the Falklands and, given the commemorations this year, it was important to record in this debate our admiration for what our service personnel did in the Falklands. We look forward to the commemorations; many of those who served in the Falklands will take part in both the main event in London—on Sunday 17 June in Horse Guards parade—and the visit to the islands. My right hon. Friend the Minister will go out there for the anniversary and I shall visit later in the year with the main delegation of veterans. I am pleased that Members expressed recognition of what our armed forces did, as well as of the fact that many people lost their lives in that conflict.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry) mentioned the naval base review and the importance of defence industries to her constituency. I am sure her comments will be borne in mind in the review. She also drew attention to the benefits to Members of the armed forces parliamentary scheme.

David Winnick: I would like to preface my remarks by saying that it was only in 2002 that the Audit Commission told Walsall council effectively to find a new chief executive and other senior officials. At the time, the commission gave a damning picture of the services provided in the borough. Now, five years later, I am conducting a debate on the case of Mr. Peter Francis, who, in December last year, was awarded more than £650,000 in compensation by an employment tribunal in Birmingham. He brought a case against the council and at the last moment—I have to say that it really was the last moment—the council conceded and admitted liability for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination. Some money was undoubtedly spent by the local authority in trying to contest the case, but liability was admitted in the end.
	I have no complaints about the compensation. In all the circumstances, some of which I will describe, I believe that the money is justified, but it will come, of course, from local taxpayers. As I understand it, there will be no money forthcoming from central Government. The question is simply this: why was Mr. Francis treated in such a shabby and unacceptable way? As a result of what happened to him, he has suffered—and continues to suffer—much ill health and much anxiety.
	Then there is the question of the two reports into his case, neither of which will be published before the local elections. The first is by the district auditor, so the Government are involved through the Audit Commission, and we are told that it has been held up by delays in getting some individuals to comment. The district auditor's report is not ready to be published. The second report, commissioned by the council itself, and conducted by Douglas Bradbury, a former chief executive of another authority, has actually been completed and sent to the council. The question remains why it is not being published. The response from the council is that the two reports will be published at the same time—but after the local elections.
	That is amazing, is it not? We are talking about annual elections and there are arguments for and against them, but one of the main arguments in favour of them is that the electorate can make its decision accordingly. One factor is undoubtedly the performance of the council. As I say, both reports are not going to be published until after the election.
	I received a letter today from the assistant chief constable of the west midlands. It is a rather serious letter in its content, as he tells me that current cases involving the council and arising out of the allegations made have been referred to the Crown Prosecution Service. We do not know the outcome, but clearly, the police and the CPS are now involved. It makes all these matters that much more serious.
	Peter Francis was a civil servant for some 20 years. He started employment with Walsall council in June 1997. His first job was connected with the single regeneration budget, as he was the monetary officer. He was involved in the civil service as a manager in the employment service and he got promotion. In January 2004, given his background, he became the programme manager responsible for neighbourhood renewal funding, which at the time was worth about £11 million annually. That was when the trouble started for Mr. Francis.
	As I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will confirm, that money was intended for the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. When Mr. Francis became the programme manager, he found that that was not happening, and that some money was being used in areas that were not classified as such neighbourhoods. At one stage, he found that £4.5 million of the renewal fund could not be accounted for. I understand that some of that money, although nowhere near as much, continues to be unaccounted for. For all I know, that is the reason why the police are involved.
	Mr. Francis understandably raised his concerns with senior officials and the chief executive, Annie Shepperd. She was appointed in 2002, but she has now left the local authority and become the chief executive of a London borough. One would have imagined that in any organisation, whether in the public or private sector, a responsible official who was worried about such matters would receive support from senior officers. However, the very opposite happened. Mr. Francis says that rather than being listened to, with the matter investigated, he was looked on as the enemy within. Although I do not want to exaggerate, the situation reminds one to some extent of the situation in Westminster council when Lady Porter was its leader.
	The atmosphere in Walsall council was, to say the least—I am putting this at its mildest—very unhelpful indeed. Mr. Francis found that that atmosphere caused him great concern and, unfortunately, much ill health. Several community organisations—I do not have time to read out the list—that had expected to receive renewal funding found that they did not receive the money. As a result, they are in some difficulty and have had to reduce services.
	What led to the situation in which Mr. Francis had to bring his case before an employment tribunal? He found that his job was being restructured, which was a fine way of getting rid of him. He was told that the position that he had held would no longer remain in existence and that there was a new position for which he could apply, if he wished. There was certainly no enthusiasm for him to continue in the council's employment. That led to him bringing a case for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination against the local authority. The employment tribunal then reached the conclusion that, given all the circumstances, he should be awarded a sum of more than £650,000.
	At the moment, Mr. Francis suffers from depression and anxiety. He told me in a letter that he feels that his 30-year career in public service has come to an end—he is in his early 50s. Much, if not all, of the responsibility for that falls on what happened to him during his employment for Walsall council.
	Councils are run by political parties. The Conservative party that runs the council must accept some responsibility for what has occurred. I am not at all sure that the Tories running the council have owned up in any way to the situation that I have been describing. The overall responsibility lies not with senior officers or the chief executive but with the political party; that is where it begins and ends.
	I find the matter very unfortunate and I conclude with what I said at the beginning of my speech. The two important reports, by the district auditor and by Mr. Douglas Bradbury, are not being published before the local elections next Thursday, so the electorate will not be able to read them and come to a conclusion. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that I hope, even at this late stage, with only a week to go, that at least one of the reports can be published. If the district auditor's report cannot be published for the reasons that I have stated, the council should be asked—it cannot be instructed—to publish Mr. Bradbury's independent report.

Angela Smith: First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) on securing today's debate on an issue on which he clearly feels very strongly, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) for his comments, too. They are two experienced, esteemed Members held in high regard by the House. Their sense of outrage and injustice is evident to all who have heard the debate. I should say that Mr. Francis's constituency MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Steve McCabe), is present, too. Understandably, he has to be silent, but he has made it clear to me that he shares the sense of injustice about the case of Mr. Francis.
	The debate concerns a dispute between an employee—Mr. Francis—and Walsall council. The relationship between a local authority and a member of its staff is fundamentally a matter for the officer's contract of employment, and any dispute about an individual's treatment under his contract can, as it did in Mr. Francis's case, be taken to an employment tribunal. It then ultimately becomes a matter for the courts to decide on, so I hope that the House understands that it would be inappropriate for me to offer any comment on the right and wrongs of the case at this time.
	However, I recognise that there is widespread local concern, which has been expressed both tonight in the House and in recent months about the issues highlighted by the case. Those points were made very forcefully by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North and my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South. As hon. Members are aware, the district auditor for Walsall council is conducting a lengthy and thorough investigation of those matters, and that is the appropriate mechanism to uncover any issues of public concern and to ensure that the council takes any remedial action that is required.
	For the benefit of hon. Members, I should explain that in these cases, the district auditor works under part 3 of the code of audit practice. There are three areas in which the auditor has to make an assessment that are relevant to this case: the arrangements for managing financial and other resources; arrangements for ensuring compliance with established policies, procedures, laws and regulations; and arrangements for ensuring that the council's affairs are managed in accordance with proper standards of conduct. That is the basis of the investigation by the district auditor in Walsall, but right hon. and hon. Members will appreciate that the scope and complexity of work required means that it is taking some time to reach a final conclusion. A draft report was published, and comments on it have been received and must be taken into account.
	The district auditor has recently written to the leader of Walsall council. He explained what stage he has reached in finalising his conclusions and said that he hoped to issue his final report as quickly as possible, with the aim of doing so in June. I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North would like that report to be published before the local elections, and I shall come on to that in a moment. However, as he illustrated, I do not have the power to make the district auditor publish a report at any time other than when he thinks appropriate. It is for the district auditor to determine the most appropriate way to report his findings. He could produce an audit report that he would summarise in the next annual audit letter to the council, or a report in the public interest under section 8 of the Audit Commission Act 1998. A final decision has not yet been made on the appropriate way to publish.
	As my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend have said, a further inquiry linked to the case has been set up by Walsall council itself. It is designed to be complementary to the district auditor's investigation, and to set a broader context, with more emphasis on examining systems rather than on the roles played by individuals. The council asked a former chief Executive of another local authority, Douglas Bradbury, to carry out that work. I understand that, following legal advice, the council concluded that Douglas Bradbury's report and the district auditor's investigation would need to be released together, as they dealt with different aspects of the same story. That is why the council's report has been delayed. I am informed that that is the council's current intention, but I am sure that it has heard the comments made by my right hon. and hon. Friends.

Angela Smith: I was not aware that the matter was with the police and Crown Prosecution Service, but I know that my hon. Friend understands that I could not comment even if I were aware, because the legal process must run its course. It is not a matter in which I could or should intervene.
	Neighbourhood renewal funds in Walsall have been a recurrent theme in the debate in connection with the investigations. It may be helpful if I say something about that. Walsall is one of 86 local authority districts which are currently eligible to receive neighbourhood renewal fund resources. This is an unhypothecated grant introduced in 2001 and made available to local authorities with the greatest levels of deprivation in England. My right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South spoke of the need to spend the money on tackling deprivation, and my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North is right to say that the purpose of the fund is to ensure that local authorities and their partners in the most deprived local authority districts have money available to improve core services and conditions in their most deprived neighbourhoods.
	The neighbourhood renewal fund is a non-ring fenced grant. How it is spent is a decision between the local strategic partnership and its partner organisations. Local strategic partnerships are expected to use their local knowledge and spend their resources in a way that helps to meet national and local targets for reducing deprivation. The fund is flexible and locally controlled. Unlike earlier regeneration funding schemes, it does not require central Government approval for individual projects, and monitoring by Government has been focused on the outcomes of those projects, not on the details of expenditure on particular initiatives or projects.
	I understand that there has been a series of internal audit reports between 2003 and 2006 to investigate the concerns raised locally about the NRF. In some cases—I repeat, some cases—those reviews were carried out jointly with external auditors and confirmed that there were significant procedural weaknesses, which have been addressed or are being addressed. As I said, I cannot comment on any possible police investigation regarding those matters.
	It is worth reflecting on the use of the Government's statutory powers of intervention, as both my right hon. and hon. Friend have asked me to address the point. Those powers enable the Secretary of State to take action if she feels that a local authority has not made sufficient arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the exercise of its functions. It is important to recognise that those intervention powers relate to current performance and they allow Government to take action to address issues affecting service delivery. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South for commending the Government on intervening in Walsall to ensure delivery.
	However, the powers cannot be used in respect of past failings of a council or its officers, and Walsall council's performance gave sufficient concern to cause it to be placed under close external scrutiny, with a Government monitoring board in operation between 2002 and 2005. As my right hon. Friend acknowledged, major reforms were carried out during that period and there have been significant improvements in the council's performance, with Government support.
	Notwithstanding those achievements, it is clear from the employment tribunal outcome that something went badly wrong in the handling of the case. The council must consider the lessons carefully. The issues raised by the case must be dealt with in a way that is transparent, open and honest and shows that the council has learned from experience. It is not helpful for me to speculate or make any further comment in advance of the report's findings or the council's independent inquiry. I reiterate the assurance from my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government that once we have the facts before us, he will meet hon. Members to listen to their concerns and digest the content of the two reports.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Six o'clock.
	Correction
	 Official Report, 24 April 2007: in column 785 after "Ms Winterton:" insert "They are wrong because— [Interruption.].